Anecdotes

Arlen always felt that his songs were better-known than he was and, on one notable occasion, set out to prove it. When riding in a cab in New York, he heard the cabbie whistling a few bars of "Stormy Weather." Hearing this, Arlen offered to bet the cabbie double or nothing on the fare that he couldn't name the person who wrote the song, and gave the driver three guesses. When all the guesses proved incorrect, Arlen said, "I wrote it. I'm Harold Arlen." Totally astonished, the cabbie looked back at his customer and said, "WHO?"

Wrote his famous Academy Award-winning song "Over the Rainbow" at Schwab's Drugstore on Sunset Boulevard. One evening as he was passing the store, the melody suddenly flooded his mind and he paused in the light coming from the windows to write down his notes.

He was one of the members of the Ken Darby Vocal Trio. His voice can be heard as the Scarecrow in the Decca Records single of the Harburg-Arlen song "The Jitterbug", which was cut from the final release print of "The Wizard of Oz". This Decca Records single, with "Over the Rainbow" (as sung by Judy Garland)on the reverse side, was not recorded from the soundtrack of the film, but was part of a studio cast 78 RPM 5-record album of the songs featuring Judy Garland and the Ken Darby Singers, with Victor Young and his orchestra. The album was the first album ever made of songs from "The Wizard of Oz"; it was eventually released on LP and remained in print well into the 1950's.

Was nominated for Broadway's 1958 Tony Award, his music with lyrics by E.Y. Harburg, as part of Best Musical nomination for "Jamaica."

Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1971.

Inducted into the Jewish Buffalo [New York] Hall of Fame.

His musical, "The Wizard of Oz" at the Marriott Theatre in Chicago, Illinois was nominated for a 1999 Equity Joseph Jefferson Award for Musical Production.

Pictured on one of a set of four 32¢ US commemorative postage stamps in the Legends of American Music series, issued 11 September 1996, celebrating American songwriters. Others honored in this issue are Johnny Mercer, Dorothy Fields, and Hoagy Carmichael.

Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume Two, 1986-1990, pages 27-29. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999.