Kay Swift (1897–1993)

Katharine "Kay" Faulkner Swift was born into a musical family. Her father Samuel Swift was the music critic for a number of publications, including the New York Tribune. At age 6 she already loved opera, and began composing her own pieces on the piano. She studied classical music and composition at the Institute of Musical Art, now known as The Juilliard School of Music. She played professionally with the Edith Rubel Trio. In 1918, she married James P. Warburg, a member of the distinguished Jewish banking family originally from Germany, with whom she had three children. Kay met George Gershwin in 1925, and frequently consulted with him about his work; he also encouraged her to write popular music. Her husband wrote some of her lyrics under the pseudonym Paul James. Kay had an affair with Gershwin that lasted about 10 years. She became the first woman to write the score for a complete Broadway musical, the hit show Fine and Dandy (1930), which contains some of her best-known songs, including "Can This Be Love." The title song became a jazz standard. Can't We Be Friends? (1929) was another important musical hit. She and James Warburg divorced in 1934. After George Gershwin's death in 1937, his brother Ira Gershwin collaborated with Kay to complete and arrange some of George's unpublished works. Kay Swift also contributed numbers to The First Little Show and The Garrick Gaieties, composed a ballet for George Balanchine, was a staff composer at Radio City Music Hall where she wrote musical numbers for the Rockettes, and served as director of light music for the 1939 World's Fair in New York. Her 1943 autobiographical book about life on the Oregon ranch of her second husband, Who Could Ask For Anything More? was the basis for the 1950 movie "Never a Dull Moment" with a Kay Swift musical score. Her granddaughter and namesake Katharine Weber is a popular novelist.