Grant Clarke: Wrote “Second Hand Rose”

Today is the birthday of Tin Pan Alley songwriter Grant Clarke (1891-1931). Originally from Akron, in vaudeville, he performed himself and wrote songs and special material for Bert Williams, Nora Bayes, Eva Tanguay, Al Jolson, and Fanny Brice, including one of her signature hits “Secondhand Rose.” On Broadway he contributed lyrics to Bombo (1921) and the Ziegfeld Follies of 1921 and Dixie to Broadway (1924). For Hollywood, he co-wrote songs for The Jazz Singer (1927), Weary River (1928), On With the Show (1929), and Is Everybody Happy? (1929).

To find out more about the variety arts past and present, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold. And don’t miss my new book Chain of Fools: Silent Comedy and Its Legacies from Nickelodeons to Youtube, just released by Bear Manor Media, also available from amazon.com etc etc etc