Biografie

When Berlin married Ellin Mackay, the Comstock Lode heiress, the bride's father wrote her out of his will for marrying a Jew. Berlin then assigned the copyright of his popular song, "Always", to her, which yielded very handsome royalties as the years went by. And true to the sentiments of the song, Berlin devoted himself to his lovely wife for the rest of her long life.

He was widely considered of the greatest songwriters in American history. His music forms a great part of the Great American Songbook.

During the filming of his singing his composition "Oh How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning" in This Is the Army (1943), one of the backstage crew was heard to have whispered to another crew worker, "If the guy who wrote this song could hear this guy singing it, he would roll over in his grave!".

First meet lifelong best friend Fred Astaire on the set of Ich tanz mich in dein Herz hinein (1935).

Was denied a Kennedy Center Honor. By the time he was considered for one, he was too sick to fulfill the requirement that an honoree must attend the award ceremony.

Never hate a song that's sold a half million copies

The song has ended, but the melody lingers on.

The toughest thing about success is that you've got to keep on being a success.

[to his daughter, on his wife's lavish Christmas spending] I gave up trying to get your mother to economize. It was easier just to make more money.

[on Fred Astaire] Fred knew the value of a song and his heart was in it before his feet took over.