Photo by Chad Batka
Sheldon Harnick is 97 years old today.
Harnick is a lyricist best known for his collaborations with composer Jerry Bock on hit musicals, including Fiddler on the Roof. He began his career writing words and music to comic songs in musical revues. One of these, "The Merry Minuet,” was popularized by the Kingston Trio.
Harnick was born to American Jewish parents and grew up in the Chicago neighborhood of Portage Park. Yiddish was rarely spoken in the home, mostly as a way of telling secrets between parents. He began writing music while still in Carl Schurz High School in Chicago. After his Army service, he graduated from the Northwestern University School of Music (1946-1949) with a Bachelor of Music Degree, and worked with various orchestras in the Chicago area.
He then moved to New York City and wrote for many musicals and revues. He was friends with Charlotte Rae from college, and he went to see her one night at the Village Vanguard where she was singing a revue.
Yip Harburg, who was one of Harnick's idols, heard she was singing a song of his and decided to come. He told Harnick that he enjoyed his writing, and urged him to continue. He advised Harnick to work with a large number of composers.
He also counseled him to write character and comic songs, not ballads, for Broadway. Harnick followed both tips. Harburg gave him that advice because his old partner, Jay Gorney, had told them ballads were the key to success on Broadway.
Around 1956, Harnick met Jerry Bock, forming "what is arguably the most important musical partnership of the '60s." Their first musical was The Body Beautiful, running for only 60 performances in 1958, but Fiorello! (1959) ran for 795 performances and won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
Fiddler on the Roof (1964) "became one of the most cherished of all Broadway musicals."