William Jerome

William Jerome (William Jerome Flannery, September 30, 1865 – June 25, 1932) was an American songwriter, born in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York of Irish immigrant parents, Mary Donnellan and Patrick Flannery. He collaborated with numerous well-known composers and performers of the era, but is best-remembered for his decade-long association with Jean Schwartz with whom he created many popular songs and musical shows in the 1900s and early 1910s.

By the time he was seventeen, Jerome was singing and dancing in vaudeville. He toured with minstrel shows and performed in blackface. He met Eddie Foy while on tour and they became friends; the two would work together often throughout their careers. By the late 1880s Jerome was performing as a parody-singer at Tony Pastor's. He also began to write songs and his efforts met with some success. In 1891, Jerome composed "He Never Came Back", sung by Foy in the musical Sinbad, which became the hit of the show. Throughout the 1890s he continued to perform, and his reputation as a lyricist grew gradually. He wrote "My Pearl is a Bowery Girl" (1894) with Andrew Mack which became a number one record for Dan W. Quinn.

He met and married another vaudeville singer, Maude Nugent, probably in the early 1890s. He and Nugent had at least one child, Florence, born in 1896.

Jerome is sometimes credited with suggesting the bicycle lyric of "Daisy Bell" (1892) to Harry Dacre.

His first collaboration with songwriter Jean Schwartz was the coon song, "When Mr. Shakespeare Comes to Town", in 1901.

The duo came up with "Mr. Dooley", which was interpolated into the 1902 American staging of the London musical A Chinese Honeymoon.Chinese Honeymoon was successful and "Mr. Dooley" became popular. Later that year the song was interpolated into The Wizard of Oz, extending its popularity. "Mr. Dooley" reputedly sold over a million copies. Their next big hit was "Bedelia" (1903). Interpolated into The Jersey Lily and sung by Blanche Ring, it sold over three million copies. By 1904, "Bedelia" had been recorded by four different artists on the three major phonograph labels.

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