Vernon Duke
| Vernon Duke | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Vladimir Aleksandrovich Dukelsky |
| Born |
10 October 1903 Minsk Governorate, Russian Empire |
| Died | 16 January 1969 (aged 65) Santa Monica, California, United States |
| Genres | Broadway musicals, Classical |
| Occupation(s) | Songwriter, composer |
Vernon Duke (10 October [O.S. 27 September] 1903 – 16 January 1969) was an American composer/songwriter, who also wrote under his original name, Vladimir Dukelsky. He is best known for "Taking a Chance on Love" with lyrics by Ted Fetter and John Latouche (1940), "I Can't Get Started" with lyrics by Ira Gershwin (1936), "April in Paris" with lyrics by E. Y. ("Yip") Harburg (1932), and "What Is There To Say" for the Ziegfeld Follies of 1934, also with Harburg. He wrote the words and music for "Autumn in New York" (1934) for the revue Thumbs Up! Vernon collaborated with lyricists such as Johnny Mercer, Ira Gershwin, Ogden Nash and Sammy Cahn.
Vladimir Aleksandrovich Dukelsky (Russian: Владимир Александрович Дукельский) was born in 1903 into a noble family of mixed Georgian-Austrian-Spanish-Russian descent, in Parafianovo, Vilna Governorate, Russian Empire (in present-day Belarus). The 1954 Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians referred to "one of his grandparents" (Princess Tumanishvili) as having been "directly descended from the kings of Georgia". His birthplace was a small railroad station in Minsk Governorate. At that time his mother "happened to be traveling by train". The Dukelskys resided in Kiev, and Vladimir's only visit to Saint Petersburg and Moscow occurred in the summer of 1915. The impressions of that remarkable summer were later echoed in Dukelsky's most daring classical composition, the Russian oratorio The End of St. Petersburg (1931–37). The title is a reference to the film The End of St. Petersburg directed by Vsevolod Pudovkin.
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