To most listeners, Irving Berlin stands as one of the few certifiable geniuses of American popular music.
Without having learned to read or write a note of music, he created songs that Americans-and people around the world-have been humming for much of this century. ”White Christmas,” ”Easter Parade,” ”God Bless America,”
”Always,” ”Alexander`s Ragtime Band,” ”I Love a Piano,” ”Blue Skies”-the list includes more classics than any American songwriter has produced. That Berlin crafted both words and music makes the accomplishment all the more monumental.
But to Laurence Bergreen, author of the most recent Berlin biography,
”As Thousands Cheer: The Life of Irving Berlin” (Viking, $24.95), Berlin is a dark, callous and selfish individual, devoted to commerce rather than music. In this book, Berlin`s songs are considered incidental to his pursuit of money.
Berlin evolved from an immigrant child named Israel Baline, son of a poor Russian cantor who came to the United States in 1893, into the pre-eminent popular American songwriter of this century. Virtually self-taught, Berlin had to dictate his songs to a musical transcriber; yet his words and music remain integral to America`s view of itself, still performed on Independence Day
(”God Bless America”), Easter (”Easter Parade”), Christmas (”White Christmas”) and more.
He gave uncounted millions of dollars to charities; created such landmark stage musicals as ”Annie Get Your Gun” (1946) and ”Call Me Madam” (1950)
and such beguiling film musicals as ”Top Hat” (1935), ”Alexander`s Ragtime Band” (1938), ”Holiday Inn” (1942), ”This is the Army” (1943), ”Easter Parade” (1948), ”White Christmas” (1954) and ”There`s No Business Like Show Business” (1954).
Bergreen says he interviewed roughly 200 persons for this book over two years, and the book indeed offers a fascinating portrait of the entertainment world in which Berlin lived.
But for all Bergreen`s considerable research, he never met the songwriter or interviewed any of his immediate family members.
The resultant text contains several controversial assertions:
– In 1936, the entertainment industry convened at the Ambassador Hotel in Hollywood to honor Berlin`s 25 years as a songwriter. After each of 25 songwriters sang a different Berlin classic, Berlin himself strode to the piano and sang a few of his gems.
Writes Bergreen: ”He (Berlin) forced himself to go along with the charade because it was, in the final analysis, good for business, and he was enough of a businessman to realize that that night`s song plugging could become tomorrow`s contract.”
How did Bergreen know what was in Berlin`s mind?
”He was the quintessential hustler, which is not to take away from his musical talent or his generosity, but that`s how he made his living,” said Bergreen. ”I mean, that`s how he started, by singing on the streets as a busker (street performer). And for him the relationship between music and money-they were equivalent.”
– During his long life, Berlin (who died last year at age 101) donated vast sums to charity, including the royalties from ”God Bless America”
(worth millions) to the Girl and Boy Scouts of America.
But Bergreen writes: ”Recognizing that it would be unseemly for him to continue earning royalties from a song whose primary purpose was patriotic rather than commercial, Berlin established a trust, the God Bless America Fund, to distribute the money earned by the song to charity.”
How did Bergreen know Berlin`s motive?
”There were two reasons,” said the author in a recent telephone conversation. ”First, it seemed to me that it would be unseemly. Secondly, I asked Helmy Kresa (Berlin`s longtime musical transcriber) why Berlin did it that way.
”I`m trying to think of what other sources. Oh, I know. His secretary at the time was Minna Granat. I asked her about that, and she explained to me how the mechanics of that worked and why he did it.” (In the footnotes for the book, Bergreen cites Granat as his only source. Could she substantiate her assertion? Bergreen doesn`t tell us.)
– Perhaps the most controversial of Bergreen`s assertions regards the suicide of Berlin`s youngest sister, Sarah Henkin. Bergreen acknowledges in the book that, ”Not a man given to displaying private emotion, Berlin broke down on this occasion and wept.”
Then he adds: ”For Berlin, who was always acutely aware of his public image, his sister`s death was, in addition to being a tragedy, a source of deep embarrassment.”
How did Bergreen know this tragedy was an ”embarrassment” for Berlin?
”I guess I discussed this with Harold Leventhal, who had been Berlin`s office boy, and thus worked with Berlin on a daily basis over a period of years in the `30s.
”Berlin kept himself distant from his family. He didn`t associate with them, he gave them very little money. So I felt that was a reasonable conclusion. And Harold Leventhal told me Berlin was embarrassed by his sister`s death.”
But did Bergreen ever ask Leventhal, or anyone else, how they came to their conclusions? ”I`m not sure what difference it would make if I asked them that question,” Bergreen said.
– Bergreen also takes aim at Berlin`s songs.
”(Berlin`s) narrow field of activity resulted from both his own musical limitations and his enslavement to the musical marketplace,” writes Bergeen. ”He was, in a broad sense, a victim of his success, doomed to replicate it ad infinitum.”
Asked why he considered Berlin a slave to the marketplace, Bergreen said: ”For Irving Berlin, a successful popular song, a good popular song, was a popular song that a lot of people wanted to buy. And a bad song was a song that was unpopular. . .
”He was a slave to the marketplace because his songs were meant to express popular opinion. They were not meant to express personal feelings of his.”
Bergreen said he undertook the biography of Berlin ”because of his central importance to American popular entertainment, and because it was a largely untold story: There was almost nothing in hardcover.”
”Irving Berlin” by Michael Freedland (Stein & Day, 1974) remains a more believable portrait, in part because he spoke with Berlin. Freedland`s Berlin, though hardly flawless, is a songwriter fiercely devoted to his craft and continually trying to top himself.
Bergreen said he ”tried repeatedly to obtain interviews with Berlin, both directly and through intermediaries and colleagues and friends and so on.” He also sought to interview Berlin`s daughters, who ”were very shy about talking with me, so, in the end, they didn`t. . . . I eagerly sought their cooperation and would have welcomed it.”
The Berlin family has publicly criticized Bergreen`s book, and is commissioning an authorized biography.
It`s worth noting that Bergreen`s other biography, ”James Agee: A Life” (1984) earned public denunciation from Agee`s son, Joel, who protested in a 1,100-word essay, published in The New York Times, that concluded:
”Throughout the book, Mr. Bergreen supplies James Agee with thoughts, feelings and motives for which no documentation is offered, probably because none exists.”
Bergreen has no qualms about the assumptions he has made about Berlin.
”A biographer goes around and gathers almost any story you can find about your subject . . . And then you assemble it into a coherent pattern, you look for influences, for patterns,” said Bergreen. ”I draw conclusions, and I interpret.”
