George Forrest

Songwriter George Forrest’s best-known functions are the criteria “Strangers in Heaven” and “Baubles, Bangles and Beads.” Along with his regular collaborator Robert Wright (blessed Robert Craig Wright in 1914), Forrest amassed an enviable set of melody credits for the stage and display screen. Blessed George Forrest Chichester Jr. in Brooklyn, NY, he transferred to Miami, FL, along with his family members within the first fifty percent of the 1920s. With handful of formal musical schooling, Forrest became adept over the piano as a little child. As a teenager, Forrest was associated performers in Miami dance clubs and sang in his senior high school glee membership — that is where he fulfilled Wright, who was simply the glee club’s pianist. While still within their teenagers, Forrest and Wright still left on the cabaret tour that eight a few months later finished up in Hollywood, where in fact the duo audition for MGM. Being successful a seven-year agreement with the film studio, their initial project was to rating the Jeanette MacDonald/Nelson Eddy film Maytime. The duo’s 72-calendar year songwriting career resulted in the creation of over 2,000 music, 16 stage musicals (1944’s The Melody of Norway, 1961’s Kean, 1989’s Grand Resort), 58 film scores, and an array of cabaret works. Their most well-known music, “Strangers in Heaven” and “Baubles, Bangles and Beads,” had been originally contained in the 1953 Tony Award-winning Broadway strike musical Kismet. Peggy Lee’s 1953 cover of “Baubles, Bangles and Beads” peaked at amount 30 pop, the Kirby Rock Four’s 1958 doo wop edition strike amount 25 pop, and Frank Sinatra protected the melody on his Arrive Dance BESIDE ME! LP. The 1955 MGM film edition directed by Vincente Minnelli and starring Howard Keel, Vic Damone, Ann Blyth, and Sebastian Cabot, was nominated for Oscars for the three music “Generally and Generally,” “From the Blue Globe,” and “Pennies for Peppino.” Kismet was also a 1967 Television particular starring Jose Ferrer, Barbara Eden, Anna Maria Alberghetti, George Chakiris, and Hans Conried. The duo gained the ASCAP/Richard Rodgers Award in identification of their efforts towards the American musical movie theater. At age 84, George Forrest passed away in Miami on Oct 10, 1999. During his loss of life, he and Robert Wright had been collaborating on another musical. Discover Also All Film Guide Entry.