He was the son of a mill hand from an upper class Southern family, once-wealthy plantation owners who lost their money after the Civil War. On August 31, 1885, Heyward was born Edwin DuBose Heyward in Charleston, South Carolina. Two years later, just weeks before his 39th birthday, George Gershwin passed away in Hollywood, California, on July 11, 1937.ĭuBose Heyward (1885-1940) and Dorothy Heyward (1890-1961) Porgy and Bess opened in 1935 in New York and Boston to mixed reviews. In addition to Porgy and Bess, his most famous works include Rhapsody in Blue and the songs “’S Wonderful” and “I Got Rhythm.” At age 15, George was offered a job in Broadway’s famed “Tin Pan Alley” playing the piano to sell songs.īy the time George was 18, his first original song was published. When George was 13, the Gershwin family purchased a secondhand piano for George’s older brother, Ira.
Gershwin would later talk about this powerful moment: “It was, to me, a flashing revelation of beauty.” When he was six years old, George Gershwin was captivated by Anton Rubinstein’s Melodie in F, which he heard played on a piano roll (an automatic piano) in a Harlem penny arcade (like today’s video arcades).Īt Public School 25, he listened to fellow student Maxie Rosenzweig, who was eight at the time, playing Antonín Dvořák’s Humoresque on the violin.
Born Jacob Gershowitz in Brooklyn, New York, on September 26, 1898, George was the son of immigrants who came to the United States from St. George Gershwin was born at the end of the 19th century, during the term of William McKinley, the 25th President of the United States.
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