Library Exhibit –

A Look At The Many Interests And Talents

Of Edward Eliscu

By Jan Howard

The Cyrenius H. Booth Library has mounted an exhibit highlighting the career of the late writer/lyricist Edward Eliscu, a longtime resident of Newtown who died in 1998.

The exhibit includes photographs of Mr Eliscu with his wife, artist Stella Bloch, singer Johnny Cash, and actor Mickey Rooney, posters of musical revues and Broadway plays, sheet music, and awards, including an official citation from the State of Connecticut General Assembly.

Also included in the exhibit is the 40-year-old portable Royal typewriter Mr Eliscu used to write his lyrics, plays, poems, and autobiography, With or Without a Song, A Memoir, which is to be published by Scarecrow Press, Inc., in June.

David Eliscu, Mr Eliscu’s son, assembled the exhibit in time for Valentine’s Day. It includes a newspaper article about Valentine’s Day that featured his parents.

“He wrote love songs,” David Eliscu noted, adding, however, “I wanted the exhibit to represent the full range of his involvement. The scope of his career was very broad.”

He said he chose the items randomly. “There are so many things. I tried to represent some aspects from his wide career as well as get a plug in for the book.”

David Eliscu edited his father’s manuscript for publication. “I’ve been working on it for the last two years. He didn’t finish it, but he left enough material that just needed organizing. We were fortunate to get a publisher to publish it in its original form.”

Mr Eliscu said he is in the process of categorizing memorabilia from his father’s career. “Part of his work will go to the Billy Rose Collection at the New York Public Library,” he said. “I have to see what is best suited to what place.”

Some items will be donated to the C.H. Booth Library. “He was a great supporter of the library,” Mr Eliscu said.

“My parents discovered Newtown before I was born, and lived near where they eventually bought a house. They moved here permanently in 1964,” he said. “My father did most of his work at home, though he went to New York City often.”

He said his father’s song, “Great Day,” was used in a Republican political campaign. When his father would sing it, he noted, he would often change the lyrics to “when we have nuclear disarmament, it’ll be a great day.”

“His musical Meet the People was a socially conscious revue,” Mr Eliscu said. “His revues had a political, social base, and expressed his beliefs.

“A lot of articles don’t mention that a lot of his writing was motivated by social and political issues. He wanted to be considered a serious writer, but he was best known for his lyrics. His political satirical writing is not as well known.”

In 1975, Edward Eliscu worked with WestConn students on his Revue, Rewind and Play. “My father said that was the highlight of his life, working with the students,” Mr Eliscu said.

As a child David Eliscu was unaware his father was famous. “You never saw his name on a movie screen,” he said. “My father wasn’t really honored until late in life. He received a lot of honors, and in 1988 he played the Palace.

“He was favorably reviewed as a screen writer and wrote dramatic plays,” he said.

The family was very aware, however, that Mr Eliscu had been blacklisted, first for organizing the Screen Actors Guild in Hollywood, which, David Eliscu said, “was a company town then.”

Edward Eliscu was blacklisted again in the late 1940s when he was accused, with others, of being a communist. “We were aware we were different because of our parents’ political beliefs. He would never say if he was ever a member of the Communist Party,” Mr Eliscu said. “He was in favor of political and economic equality and was against war, though he hated the Fascists.”

After 1950, Mr Eliscu said, his father was not able to find work in Hollywood so he came back east. “He was a writer at heart. He went back to poetry and the theater. He was a writer who had to write. He was very prolific. To his last days, every morning he would go to his typewriter. He was so self motivated.”

His father’s memoir is a “fascinating book,” Mr Eliscu said. “He didn’t talk about his past. I learned things about him I didn’t know.”

Edward Eliscu’s career was many faceted for more than 60 years. He was a lyricist, sketch writer, and screenwriter on more than 20 movies and plays. He acted in and directed plays, directed movies, and wrote for television. He also published poetry and articles in New Republic, The Nation, The Saturday Review, Ramparts, and other publications.

With composers Vincent Youmans, Billy Rose, Ned Lehak and Jay Gorney, and others, he wrote lyrics for well-known songs that continue to be sung. “Without a Song” and “More Than You Know” have become classics. “Without a Song” was recorded by Paul Robeson, Frank Sinatra, Tommy Dorsey, and Willie Nelson, and “More Than You Know” was featured in the 1989 film The Fabulous Baker Boys, and popularized by Benny Goodman, Perry Como, and others. Tony Martin sang it in a film version of Hit the Deck, as did Barbra Streisand in Funny Lady. His “Carioca” was included in the 1933 film Flying Down to Rio with Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire.

As an actor, Mr Eliscu appeared in Broadway shows, such as The Racket, in which he played Edward G. Robinson’s younger brother, and Quarantine with Helen Hayes.

He debuted on Broadway as a lyricist in 1929 with Great Day and the hit musical revue The Third Little Show, in 1931. The Third Little Show and You Forgot Your Gloves established his songwriting reputation.

Much of his work was featured in musical revues, which often had political points of view. Meet the People, which he and Mr Gorney wrote, opened in 1940 and included the song “Union Label.”

During the 1930s and 1940s, Mr Eliscu was a screenwriter for 12 Hollywood films, including Little Miss Nobody, Charlie McCarthy, Detective, Something to Shout About, and Letter to Three Husbands. In the 1950s, he adapted Sidney Howard’s play The Late Christopher Bean for television.

Mr Eliscu was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1975. In 1987, he received the ASCP/Richard Rodgers Award for outstanding contributions to the American musical theater.

In 1993, he was honored at a “Singers’ Salute to Songwriters” in Los Angeles and in 1997 by the Songwriters’ Guild of America.

The exhibit is located in four display cases on the second floor of the library near the circulation desk. It will be on display through March.