Composer, born in New York City, New York, USA. Abandoning the chance to go to Yale and then a job on Wall Street, he went to work as a song plugger on Tin Pan Alley. After serving with the navy in World War 1, he returned to work as an accompanist and composer. His music for Wildflower (1923), No, No, Nanette (1925), Hit the Deck! (1927), and Great Day! (1929) included such popular songs as Tea for Two, Sometimes I'm Happy, and Without a Song. For the film Flying Down to Rio (1933) he also wrote such melodies as Carioca and Music Makes Me. During the 1930s, his finances, marriage, and health all collapsed, although his music would always be played, and he never enjoyed much success after 1933. Said to have been the model for Abe North in F Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night, he died prematurely of tuberculosis.
Vincent Youmans (September 27, 1898 - April 5, 1946) was an American popular composer and Broadway producer.
After Oh Please, Hit the Deck, Rainbow and Take a Chance, his career faded, in part due to heavy drinking.
Youmans was painfully aware that many of his fellow songwriters ended up impoverished, and he was determined to avoid that fate. Eventually, when Youmans decided to retire and collect his insurance, he learned that the insurance companies would not pay off unless Youmans was physically incapable of earning a living: as long as his songs were performed or published, Youmans would not be deemed incapacitated.
In his last years, after collecting most of his insurance money, Youmans longed for the limelight again.
In the early 1950s, Youmans hosted a radio program called Shake the Maracas in which audience members competed for small prizes by playing maracas with the orchestra.
The two hit songs from No, No, Nanette, "Tea for Two" and "I Want to Be Happy" are considered standards.
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