Astaire and Rogers dance in a dream in Carefree's "I Used To Be Color Blind". Billy Rose Theatre Collection, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

May 27 through September 3, 2006


Sponsored by Worth & Company, Inc.

Please note: there is a special exhibition fee of $4 for this exhibition.

This exhibition told the story of Berlin's career in Hollywood, as well as the evolution of the film musical. It featured a diverse group of more than 100 objects and images that evoked the rich visual legacy of Berlin's career, including photographs, set and costume designs, drawings and caricatures, models, scrapbooks, posters, and album covers. The exhibition included an interactive element that allowed visitors to hear and see his work for film as originally intended.

David Leopold curated the exhibition, which was part of a nationwide celebration of the life and work of Irving Berlin, and was accompanied by a major new book by Leopold entitled Irving Berlin's Show Business published by Abrahms.

Poster for Berlin's 1936 film, On the Avenue.

Irving Berlin and Hollywood have been linked ever since the movies started using sound. Al Jolson singing "Blue Skies" in The Jazz Singer; Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing in Top Hat; Bing Crosby crooning "White Christmas" in Holiday Inn; Marilyn Monroe's sultry rendition of "Heat Wave" in There's No Business Like Show Business. These iconic images from Hollywood history all sprang from the hand of one man: Irving Berlin. Berlin recognized movies as a powerful and visual medium that provided nationwide exposure for a song. For six decades beginning in 1919, Berlin wrote songs and scores for 20 films, and his music continues to be heard in more than 75 others.

Irving Berlin emigrated from Russia to America with his family in 1893, and moved to the Lower East Side of New York City. He left home at thirteen and started singing in the streets and in saloons to earn money. Soon he was hired as a singing waiter at a notorious dive, where he wrote his first song. Two years later he was a staff writer at an established music publisher. Working day and night, and after many hits, he was made a partner in the firm, which now bore his name. Before the end of his first decade as songwriter, he opened his own publishing company.

When movie musicals were considered box office poison in the early 1930s, Berlin returned to New York feeling that the heyday of film music was over. He didn't know that he would spend almost the entire decade supplying movies with music. In the 1940s and 1950s, Berlin wrote the complete scores for nine films and his songs were featured in 12 others including the holiday classic It's A Wonderful Life. Berlin's songs continue to be part of the Hollywood music tradition heard in recent films such as The Titanic, The English Patient, Once Upon a Time in America, Billy Elliot, A.I., and Mona Lisa Smile.

	Changing and Permanent Exhibits

	In Doylestown: Lilli Gettinger: Memory Transformed Color: Ten African-American Artists Elliott Erwitt: Dog Dogs In New Hope: Art and the River