Hal Borne
Hal Borne (December 26, 1911, Chicago, Illinois - February 25, 2000, Tarzana, California) was an American popular song composer, orchestra leader, music arranger and musical director, who studied music at the University of Illinois. He often collaborated with lyricists Sid Kuller and Ray Golden, including songs for the Marx Brothers ("Sing While You Sell") and Tony Martin ("Tenement Symphony"). At the beginning of his career Hal Borne worked for RKO Radio Pictures as the rehearsal pianist for Fred Astaire. He became a key musical contributor to the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals, arranging new Jerome Kern and Irving Berlin songs; Hal Borne came up with the familiar three-note obbligato to Berlin's "Cheek to Cheek" ("Heaven... [obbligato] I'm in heaven [obbligato]") in the 1935 film Top Hat. In 1941 he collaborated with Duke Ellington, Paul Francis Webster and Kuller on the progressive all-black revue Jump for Joy, which was supported by many Hollywood liberals of the time, such as Groucho Marx, Mickey Rooney, and Orson Welles. Borne became a big-band orchestra leader and in February 1942 signed as the music director for RCM's Soundies (musical shorts filmed for jukeboxes) for which his trio often provided backings.<ref>Billboard, February 28, 1942.</ref> Borne joined ASCAP