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| Composers George Gershwin, left, and his brother Ira were honored with a posthumous dedication of a Hollywood Walk of Fame star Thursday |
Gershwins given star on 'Hollywood Walk of Fame'
Web posted on: Friday, June 05, 1998 3:22:17 PM
LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- The Gershwin brothers have been enshrined on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.
George and Ira Gershwin, among the 20th century's most gifted and prolific songwriters, were given a star posthumously on the well-known sidewalk Thursday.
Family members, fans and friends attended the unveiling, part of a two-year tribute to the Gershwin's 100th birthdays. Ira was born on December 6, 1896, and brother George on September 26, 1898.
Together, the two wrote 425 songs and worked on 20 musicals between 1918 and George's death in 1937. Their works include the folk opera "Porgy and Bess" and the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Of Thee I Sing."
"The Gershwins had a profound influence on my life," actor Jack Lemmon said at the ceremony, recalling that as a youth he hated the piano lessons forced on him by his parents -- until he heard his first George Gershwin album.
"I went away to school at age 13 and the kid next door played records all day and night," he said. "I went to the kid and said, 'Who is that?' and the kid responded, 'That's my Georgie boy.'
"From then on, I bought all their records with any money I could scrape up. I would use the dormitory piano to pick out the music on the piano because I never learned to read music."
Actress Angie Dickinson, a longtime friend of Ira Gershwin and his wife Lenore, said she appreciated the man even more than his music.
"I played poker every Saturday night for 35 years with him and Lenore," Dickinson said. "I loved them beyond the music. If Mrs. Gershwin were here today, she would say, 'Isn't this peachy?'"
The Gershwin brothers were born in New York but spent much of their careers in Hollywood. George wrote the music for the pair, and first hit it big with "Rhapsody in Blue" at age 25. Lyricist Ira often wrote under the name Arthur Francis.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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