George M. Cohan
George M. Cohan was an influential American playwright, composer, actor, and producer, born on July 3, 1878, in Providence, Rhode Island. He emerged from a family of vaudeville performers, gaining exposure to the theater at a young age. By the time he was nine, Cohan was already performing on stage with his family and began contributing original songs and skits shortly thereafter. Over his prolific career, Cohan wrote more than five hundred songs, including famous patriotic anthems like "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and "You're a Grand Old Flag." He became particularly well-known for his World War I hit "Over There," which later earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Cohan transitioned from vaudeville to Broadway, where he wrote, produced, and directed over forty musicals and adapted another forty. His life and career were further popularized by the 1942 film "Yankee Doodle Dandy," which introduced him to new audiences. Cohan's legacy is commemorated by a statue on Broadway, honoring his significant contributions to American musical theater. His autobiography, "Twenty Years on Broadway and the Years It Took to Get There," reflects on his extensive career and experiences in the entertainment industry. Cohan passed away from cancer in 1942, leaving behind a rich legacy in American arts and culture.
On this Page
George M. Cohan
Entertainer
- Born: July 3, 1878
- Birthplace: Providence, Rhode Island
- Died: November 5, 1942
- Place of death: New York, New York
Biography
George M. Cohan always claimed to have been born on the Fourth of July, but this was a part of his self-created portrait of himself as the quintessential patriotic American. In truth, Cohan was born one day earlier, on July 3, 1878, in Providence, Rhode Island, to a prominent family of vaudeville performers. Though his family’s itinerant lifestyle left young Cohan little opportunity for formal education, he received ample on the job training in the theater. As an infant, he was used as a prop in one of his parents’ routines, and at the age of nine he joined his father Jeremiah, mother Helen, and older sister Josephine on stage as a regular member of the act known as The Four Cohans. He soon established himself as a talented singer, dancer, and actor, and by the age of eleven he was contributing original skits and songs to the act. At sixteen he began selling the songs that would be his greatest contribution to American popular culture.
In 1899, he married a popular singer and comedienne named Ethyl Levey, who joined the family act as the fifth Cohan. The marriage, however, lasted only seven years, and Cohan remarried shortly after his divorce in 1907, this time to Agnes Nolan, the sister-in-law of his theatrical production partner. During a songwriting career that spanned decades, he wrote more than five hundred songs, many of them patriotic in theme, including “Yankee Doodle Dandy,” “You’re a Grand Old Flag,” and “Give My Regards to Broadway.” The song that became best known during his lifetime was the stirring World War I number “Over There,” for which he would be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor twenty-four years later. Many of his most popular songs came from the musical plays that he began writing in 1904. After finally leaving the traveling life of vaudeville, he settled in New York, where he wrote, produced, directed, and often starred in more than forty musicals, whose titles included Little Johnny Jones, Forty-Five Minutes from Broadway, The Yankee Prince, The Rise of Rosie O’Rielly, American Born, and The Song and Dance Man. He also collaborated on and adapted another forty musicals and performed in more than one hundred fifty plays. Cohan’s autobiography, Twenty Years on Broadway and the Years It Took to Get There, was published in 1925. In 1932, he performed in his only starring film role, in The Phantom President. In 1942, just weeks before his death from cancer and more than twenty years after the height of his career, a rather romanticized film version of Cohan’s life, Yankee Doodle Dandy staring James Cagney, introduced a new generations of Americans to this playwright and performer. In 1959, a statue of Cohan was erected on Broadway in New York.