Anne Caldwell

Anne Marsh Caldwell was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She began her career at the Juvenile Opera Co. as one of only four female songwriters active in the early 1900s. She was a charter member of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, where her output between 1907 through 1928 focused mainly on Broadway scores.

In 1929, lured by producer William LeBaron, she went to Hollywood where she became a script doctor and wrote lyrics for RKO Pictures. It was announced that she was engaged by Max Hart to write songs with Harry Tierny. By October, she was signed to write the lyrics for the film Dixiana.

From 1900 to the mid-1920s, she mostly collaborated with composer Jerome Kern. Her first collaboration with Kern was the musical, She’s a Good Fellow, followed by The Night Boat (1920), and Sally (1920). The Night Boat was one of Caldwell and Kern's more successful shows but is generally not considered revivable today. The plots and comedy of their shows don’t satisfy contemporary audiences. Her final credited work was a radio adaptation of the 1933 film (on which she had also worked) Flying Down to Rio.

Until the careers of Caldwell, along with Rida Johnson Young and Dorothy Donnelly, writing American musical comedy was a male profession. They helped established the idea that a female writer could create works for the stage that were equally as satirical, witty, timely, and simply as comical as the work of any man.

Caldwell married William L. Vinal on August 2, 1885, in Manhattan, New York. They had a daughter, Marianna Sarah "Molly" Vinal (1886–1950). William Vinal was killed on March 4, 1897, in a gas explosion in Boston on the Tremont Street Subway at the Boylston station. She remarried lyricist James J. O'Dea on August 15, 1904, in Brooklyn.

She died in Beverly Hills, California, following a short illness. Her son, Anthony Patrick O'Day, and daughter, Molly O'Day (née Marianna Sarah Vinal), were with her at the time of her death.

Upon her passing, Variety called her "one of the most prolific librettists known to show business. A quiet, unassuming woman she developed a technique that rarely failed and was both book writer and lyricist." She was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.

Image:1911 NestEgg ParkTheatre Boston Massachusetts postcard.png at the Park Theatre, Boston, ca. 1911]]

Caldwell wrote lyrics and/or dialogue for dozens of Broadway shows:{{cite web |url=http://www.ibdb.com/person.php?id=4167 |title=Anne Caldwell |work=Internet Broadway Database |accessdate=April 28, 2014}}

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• Sergeant Brue (1905)
• The Top o’ th’ World (1907)
• The Nest Egg (1910)
• Uncle Sam (1911)
• The Lady of the Slipper (1912)
• When Claudia Smiles (1914)
• Chin Chin (1914)
• Pom-pom (1916)
• Go to It (1916)
• Jack O’Lantern (1917)
• The Canary (1918)
• She’s a Good Fellow (1919)
• The Lady in Red (1919)
• The Night Boat (1920)
• The Sweetheart Shop (1920)
• Tip Top (1920)
• Hitchy-Koo (1920)
• Good Morning Dearie (1921)
• The Bunch and Judy (1922)
• Sally (1923)
• Stepping Stones (1923)
• Peg-O’-My-Dreams (1924)
• The Magnolia Lady (1924)
• The City Chap (1925)
• Criss Cross (1926)
• Yours Truly (1927)
• Lucky (1927)
• Take the Air (1927)
• Yours Truly (1928)
• Three Cheers (1928)

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James J. O'Dea (1870 Canada –12 Apr 1914 Rockville Centre, New York) was a vaudeville actor, lyricist, and musical comedy playwright.

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"Anna Caldwell" Certificate No. 6075, Kings County, New York, August 15, 1904, Dix Hills, New York: Italian Genealogical Group, Inc. ({{URL|http://italiangen.org}}); {{oclc|43187049|875172671}}

[https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:24SN-ZRS "William Vinal and Anna Caldwell, August 2, 1885"] (citing Marriage in Manhattan), New York City Marriage Records, 1829–1940, culled from the New York City Municipal Archives, digitally distributed by FamilySearch ({{URL|www.familysearch.org}}) (retrieved October 29, 2015)

"Caldwell, Anne (1876–1936)," Women in World History: A Biographical Encyclopedia (Caldwell is in Vol. 3 of 17), Anne Commire (ed.), Deborah Klezmer (assoc. ed.), Gale (2000); {{oclc|612101625|41108563}}

[http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/index.php/exhibits/bio/C319 "Anne Caldwell Biography,"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304093415/http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/index.php/exhibits/bio/C319 |date=2016-03-04 }} Songwriters Hall of Fame ({{URL|http://www.songwritershalloffame.org}}) (retrieved May 6, 2015)

[http://www.nypl.org/blog/2013/01/31/musical-month-night-boat "Musical of the Month: Night Boat,"] by Doug Reside, PhD (né Douglas LaRue Reside; born 1978) (NYPL Digital Curator for Performing Arts Billy Rose Theatre Division), January 31, 2013 (retrieved May 6, 2015)

{{Cite book|title = Hit Songs, 1900-1955: American Popular Music of the Pre-Rock Era|url = https://books.google.com/books?id=hSCfBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA363|publisher = McFarland|date = 2007-04-02|access-date = 2015-05-06|isbn = 9780786429462|language = en|first = Don|last = Tyler}}

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{{Reflist|group=lower-roman|30em|refs=

"Obituaries: Anne Caldwell," Variety, October 28, 1936, p. 63.

[http://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper%2015/Variety/Variety%201914/Variety%201914%20-%201354.pdf "Obituary: James O'Dea,"] Variety, April 17, 1914, pg. 14

"Inside Stuff-Legit," Variety, October 28, 1936, p. 54.

"Anne Caldwell Signed," Billboard, October 12, 1929, p. 22.

[http://fultonhistory.com/Newspapers%207/Brooklyn%20NY%20Daily%20Eagle/Brooklyn%20NY%20Daily%20Eagle%201897%20Grayscale/Brooklyn%20NY%20Daily%20Eagle%201897%20Grayscale%20-%201040.pdf "Nine Persons Killed and Twelve Injured; Terrific Explosion In The New Boston Subway,"] Brooklyn Daily Eagle, March 4, 1897, pg. 1, col. 1

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• {{IBDB name}}
• [http://hdl.handle.net/1802/4365 The lady of the slipper: Musical with book by Caldwell and music by Victor Herbert] Vocal score from Sibley Music Library Digital Scores Collection
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20090809113005/http://songwritershalloffame.org/exhibits/C319 Anne Caldwell] at the Songwriters Hall of Fame

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Category:1867 births

Category:1936 deaths

Category:American librettists

Category:American musical theatre lyricists

Category:Writers from Boston

Category:Songwriters from Massachusetts

Category:Women librettists

Category:American women dramatists and playwrights

Category:20th-century American dramatists and playwrights

Category:20th-century American women writers