Jerome Kern
The Great American Songbook would be a lot lighter – and, frankly, not nearly so great – without classics such as “Ol’ Man River” and “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”. But these classic songs might never have been penned if not for a simple twist of fate. The man behind the music, legendary composer Jerome Kern, narrowly avoided being just another number in one of the worst maritime disasters of the twentieth century, the sinking of the RMS Lusitania by a German U-boat in the spring of 1915.
That’s not to say he wouldn’t be remembered for at least a few tunes. By the time the First World War erupted, Kern was already making a name for himself on Broadway. In fact, he had penned more than 130 tunes for 30 different shows, most of them adaptations of productions from London’s West End. It was his love of all things British that led Kern to book a ticket from New York to London in early 1915. He was to join his friend and fellow musician Charles Frohman on the Lusitania as it left New York in May of that year. But things didn’t quite go to plan.
The night before his scheduled voyage, Kern was living the good life in New York. He ended up at a late-night poker game and then slept late. The ship, with his friend Froham and around 2,000 other passengers on board, left without him. Sailing was smooth, but then the boat reached the coast of Ireland, where a German U-boat was lying in wait. A direct torpedo hit, followed by an explosion in the engine room, was enough to seal the Lusitania’s fate. It sank within minutes, with the loss of 1,198 souls. The incident provoked anger around the world, though Germany maintained the attack was justified. This outrage helped push President Wilson to involve America in the Great War.
In 1946, MGM made a biopic of Kern’s life. In it, the central character is seen rushing to the docks only to see the Lusitania leave him behind. The reality, Kern insisted, was far less dramatic: he was fast asleep when the doomed ship set off. The composer died in 1945 at the age of just 60. In the preceding three decades, he wrote some of best-loved Broadway tunes of all time, songs the world would never have known had it not been for a late-night New York poker game.
