Mitchell Parish
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Mitchell Parish (July 10, 1900 – March 31, 1993) was an American lyricist.
Parish was born Michael Hyman Pashelinsky to a Jewish family in Lithuania.[1] His family emigrated to the U.S. and arrived on 3 February 1901 on the SS Dresden when he was less than a year old, settling first in Louisiana where his paternal grandmother had family and later moving to New York City. By the late 1920s he was a well regarded Tin Pan Alley lyricist in New York City.
His best known works include the songs "Star Dust," "Sweet Lorraine," "Deep Purple," "Stars Fell on Alabama," "Sophisticated Lady," "Volare" (English lyrics), "Moonlight Serenade," "Sleigh Ride," "One Morning in May," and "Louisiana Fairy Tale", which was the first theme song used in the PBS Production of This Old House.
He died in Manhattan at the age of 92 and is buried in Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, New York.
In 1987 a revue entitled "Stardust" was staged on Broadway featuring Mitchell Parish's lyrics; it ran for 101 performances and was revived for further performances in 1999.
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[edit] Work on Broadway
- Continental Varieties (1935) - revue - featured lyricist
- Lew Leslie's Blackbirds of 1939 (1939) - revue - performer
- Earl Carroll's Vanities of 1940 (1940) - revue - featured lyricist
- Bubbling Brown Sugar (1976) - revue - featured lyricist
- Sophisticated Ladies (1981) - featured lyricist for "Sophisticated Lady"
- Stardust (1987) - revue - lyricist
[edit] References
- Hill, Tony L. "Mitchell Parish, 1900-1993," in Dictionary of Literary Biography 265. Detroit: Gale Research, 2002.
