Sammy Fain

Like many composers of the 1920s, Sammy Fain started out as a minor employee in a music publishing company. Many of his early songs were written in collaboration with Irving Kahal, including such sentimental standards as "Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella" and "That Old Feeling." Fain's first movie assignment was the 1930 Maurice Chevalier vehicle The Big Pond, which introduced the popular "You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me" (memorably reprised by all four Marx Brothers in 1931's Monkey Business). Fain also wrote extensively for Broadway: the stage revue Right This Way was highlighted by his "I'll Be Seeing You," which later became the signature tune for Liberace. Nominated for twelve Academy Awards, Fain won the prize twice, for "Secret Love" (from 1953's Calamity Jane) and the title song for 1955's Love is A Many Splendored Thing; both tunes were co-written with Paul Francis Webster. Sammy Fain's final film score was for the 1977 Disney animated feature The Rescuers.

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide