Topic: Vincent Youmans

Vincent Youmans (September 27, 1898 - April 5, 1946) was an American popular composer and Broadway producer.

Vincent Millie Youmans was born in New York City on September 27, 1898 and grew-up on Central Park West on the site where the Mayflower Hotel once stood. His father, a prosperous hat manufacturer, moved the family to upper-class Larchmont, New York. Youmans attended the Trinity School in Mamaroneck, NY and Heathcote Hall in Rye, New York. Originally, his ambition was to become an engineer and attended Yale for a short time. He dropped out to become a runner for a Wall Street brokerage firm before he was drafted to fight in World War I. He took an interest in the theatre when he produced troop shows for the Navy. After the war, he was a Tin Pan Alley song plugger for the TB Harms Company and then as a rehearsal pianist for famed composer Victor Herbert’s operettas.

No, No, Nanette was the biggest musical-comedy success of the 1920s in both Europe and the USA and his two songs "Tea for Two" and "I Want to Be Happy" are considered standards. From 1927, Youmans also produced his own shows. He had another major success with Hit the Deck! (1927; including ‘Hallelujah’), but his subsequent productions were failures, though many of their songs remain popular. His last contributions to Broadway were some songs for Take a Chance (1932).