Louis Wolfe Gilbert (August 31, 1886 – July 12, 1970) was a Russian-born American songwriter of
Tin Pan Alley. He is best remembered as the lyricist for "
Ramona" (1928), the first movie theme song ever written.[1][2][3]
Biography
Born in
Odessa,
Ukraine, then in the Russian Empire, Gilbert moved to the United States as a young man.[1][4]
Gilbert began his career touring with
John L. Sullivan and singing in a quartet at small
Coney Island café called College Inn, where he was discovered by
English producer Albert Decourville. Decourville brought him to
London as part of The Ragtime Octet.
Gilbert's first songwriting success came in 1912, when F. A. Mills Music Publishers published his song "
Waiting For the Robert E. Lee" (melody by composer
Lewis F. Muir).[4][2] Gilbert later wrote both the words and music to "
Down Yonder", a sequel to "Waiting for the Robert E. Lee". "Down Yonder" has become something of a standard as an instrumental, though the lyrics are rarely performed.
Gilbert moved to
Hollywood in 1929, and began writing for film, television, and radio (including the
Eddie Cantor show).[2]
During the 1930s, Gilbert worked on Cuban songs that helped to popularize the
rumba in America. Some of these hits for which he wrote English lyrics include "
The Peanut Vendor", "Mama Inez", and "Maria My Own".[5][6]
Gilbert wrote the theme lyrics for the popular children's
Television WesternHopalong Cassidy, which first aired in 1949 on
NBC. He was an innovator in his field, having been one of the first songwriters to begin publishing and promoting a catalog of his own works. He served as the director of
ASCAP from 1941 to 1944,[2] and again in 1953. He was inducted into the
Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.[citation needed]
Known as "Wolfie", Gilbert and his wife Rose lived in Beverly Hills and he and his family were members of Temple Israel of Hollywood.
Gilbert & Friedland was a
music publishing partnership between composer, performer, and songwriter
Anatole Friedland (also sometimes spelled Anatol Friedland and Anato Friedland) and lyricist L. Wolfe Gilbert.[9]
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abcParker, Bernard S. (2007). World War I Sheet Music - Volume 1. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc. pp. 70, 255, 321.
ISBN978-0-7864-2798-7.