Harold Orlob

Harold Orlob
Born	(1883-06-03)June 3, 1883 Logan, Utah, U.S.
Died	June 25, 1982(1982-06-25) (aged 99) Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.
Occupations	Composer lyricist film producer
Years active	1907–1982

Harold Orlob (3 June 1883 – 25 June 1982) was an American composer, lyricist, director, and film producer. His work was primarily for Broadway.

The son of Christian and Frances Orlob, Harold Fred Orlob was born in Logan, Utah on 3 June 1883.^[1][2] He moved with his family to Salt Lake City (SLC) at the age of three.^[3] His father worked for the ZCMI department store company.^[4] He was educated in Salt Lake City School District,^[3] and studied piano in SLC with Frank W. Merrill.^[5] He began composing in the 1890s while a teenager, with his first published composition being the cakewalk "White Trash" (1899, published in SLC^[6] by the Utah Lithographing Co.)^[7] He was in the eighth grade (then the highest grade) at Lowell School in the Twentieth Ward of SLC at the time of the song's publication.^[8] By that same year he was the music director of his own youth orchestra in SLC which performed for community events.^[9][10]

In 1900 Orlob entered the University of Utah (UU) as a freshman and was actively playing as a pianist for school dances among other events.^[11] That year he founded the UU's orchestra (then a student club), and served as its first music director.^[12] In 1901 he performed as a pianist at a UU event featuring Governor Heber Manning Wells as the main speaker.^[13] In addition to performing at events as a pianist, he also played in ensembles as a cornetist.^[14] He originally intended to pursue a career as an architect rather than as a musician,^[3] but did take music lessons at UU with John J. McClellan.^[15] He graduated from the university in 1903 with a degree in engineering.^[3]

After graduating from UU, Orlob pursued further studies in music at the Michigan Conservatory of Music in Detroit (MCM) where he also was an instructor in harmony and earned a music diploma.^[3] He studied piano with Alberto Jonás in New York and at the MCM.^[16] His other principal teacher at the MCM was Jean Van Der Velpen with who he studied music theory, composition, and orchestration.^[17]

Orlob began his career as a teenager in SLC working as a musician in the resident band of the Salt Lake Theatre (SLT) where he also staged operettas.^[3] He also was a member of L. P. Christensen's orchestra which was then SLC's principal symphony.^[18] He was both composer and lyricist for his first musical, The Prince and the Peasant,^[3] which was staged at the SLT when he was just eighteen years old in 1902.^[19] He published several songs while living in Utah, among them the coon song "I'se Done Lost My Job" (1901, Mellwood Publishing Co. of St. Louis)^[20] and "Mamie Kane of Maine" (1901, Willis Woodward & Co. of New York).^[18] In 1901 he traveled to New York City to try and get his work published there, and attracted the interest of M. Witmark & Sons^[21] who agreed to publish two of his songs.^[22]

In 1904 Orlob's opera, The Merry Grafters, was staged at the Detroit Opera House as a benefit for Detroit's Woman's Hospital and Infant Home. It used a libretto by Dr. E. L. Shurly, a prominent physician in Detroit.^[23] This led to work writing music for playwrights Addison Burkhardt and Max Hoffmann for the musical Bonnie Annie Laurie (1904).^[24] The was followed by music composed for The Seminary Girl;^[25] a work staged at the Great Northern Theatre in Chicago in 1905 with Orlob conducting the musical forces.^[26] This production toured to cities throughout the Midwestern United States.^[27]

In 1905 Orlob moved to New York City where he was employed by the Shubert brothers as a composer and arranger.^[28] He contributed two songs, "Are You Engaged?" and "I'm Fond of You",^[29] to their 1905 touring production of Babes in the Wood,^[30] and authored music for James T. Powers's Ysaye (1905).^[28] In New York City he worked as a songwriter for Tin Pan Alley.^[3] That year his song "With Mary Ann on a Merry-Go-Round" was published by Joseph W. Stern & Co..^[31]

He composed his best-known song "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now" in 1909, with lyrics by Will M. Hough and Frank R. Adams, selling the song to Joseph E. Howard. When the song unexpectedly became a hit, Howard presented it as his own work for several decades.^[32]

Orlob became a prolific composer for Broadway. Among his works were the short run of Corianton: An Aztec Lovestory, a work pushed through by Orestes U. Bean's salesmanship and based on the novel Corianton by B. H. Roberts. His most successful show was Listen Lester, which ran for 272 performances between 1918 and 1919.^[33] It included the song "Waiting," recorded by several artists of that era.^[34]

In 1939 Orlob produced the film ...One Third of a Nation.... Returning to Broadway musicals, in 1943 he produced Hairpin Harmony which would become a legendary flop, closing after three performances.^[35] He continued to write songs as well as a symphonic work, Recreation.^[36]

In 1947 "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now" was used as the title song of a movie about Joe Howard, leading to renewed popularity for the song. At this time Orlob brought suit to declare himself the composer, eventually reaching an out-of-court settlement with Howard for the two of them to receive joint credit. Orlob did not claim royalties.^[37]

Orlob was a founding member of ASCAP.^[38]

• Bloom, Ken (1996). American Song: The Complete Musical Theatre Companion, 1900-1984. Vol. I. Schirmer Books. ISBN 9780871969613.
• Bordman, Gerald; Norton, Richard (2010). American Musical Theatre: A Chronicle, Fourth Edition. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199729708.
• Butterworth, Neil (2019). The American Symphony. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9780429789441.
• Gänzl, Kurt (1994). "Orlob, Harold". The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre. Schirmer Books. ISBN 9780028714455.
• Lasser, Michael (2014). America's Songs II: Songs from the 1890s to the Post-War Years. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9781135094522.

• Harold Orlob Papers
• Harold Orlob at the Internet Broadway Database
• Harold Orlob at IMDb