Ned Washington Biography

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Ned Washington

Lyricist, Performer, Theatrical Agent

(1901 - 1976)

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Biographies:


•	Big Bands Database	•	•	•	•
•	songwritershalloffame.org	•	•	•	•
•	wikipedia.org	•	•	•	•
•	answers.com	•	•	•	•
•	disney.go.com	•	•	•	•

Other:


•	Songs at wikipedia.org	•	•	•	•
•	Films at imdb.com	•	•	•	•
•	Films at allmovie.com	•	•	•	•
•	On Broadway at ibdb.com	•	•	•	•

Ned Washington began his career in vaudeville in 1922 where he was an emcee and actors’ agent. His first two songs appeared in Vanities of 1928, and his first big success was with composer Victor Young’s “Can’t We Talk It Over” (1931). “I’m Getting Sentimental Over You,” written with George Bassman, became Tommy Dorsey’s theme song in 1932. The next year several of Washington’s songs were interpolated into musicals, and “Smoke Rings,” with H. Eugene Gifford, became the theme song for Glen Gray’s Casa Loma Orchestra.

Washington went to Hollywood, where he remained and enjoyed a string of hits. In 1938 his first song to make the Hit Parade was “The Nearness of You,” written with Hoagy Carmichael. 1940’s Pinocchio won two Oscars for Washington and Leigh Harline: Best Score and Best Song, “When You Wish Upon a Star.”

A long collaboration with Dimitri Tiomkin, lasting through 1964, produced “High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me)” from High Noon, the 1952 Oscar winner for Best Song, and the title songs from Return to Paradise and The High and the Mighty (1954), and Wild Is the Wind (1957), nominated for an Oscar. Many of their other songs were also nominated for Oscars. The pair also composed the theme song for TV’s Rawhide.

Another collaboration with Victor Young produced many great tunes, foremost among them three great jazz standards, “(I Don’t Stand A) Ghost of a Chance” (1933) on which Washington collaborated with Bing Crosby on the lyrics, “Stella By Starlight” from The Uninvited (1944), and the title song from My Foolish Heart (1949), nominated for an Oscar.

- Sandra Burlingame