Composer, songwriter ("A Home in the Meadow"), film executive and conductor, educated at Loyola College (on scholarship) and a piano student of his mother, and later, Letonal, Mortimer Wilson, Joseph Schillinger, and Ernst Toch. He became music director for MGM in 1941, and also was the music director for the Broadway productions "Good News", "Follow Through", "Flying Colors", "Strike Me Pink", "Hot-Cha", "May Wine", "Hooray for What", "La Rose De France" (Paris), "Leave It to Me", "Very Warm for May", and "Louisiana Purchase". In addition, he wrote the Broadway stage scores for "Texas, Li'l Darlin" and "Foxy". Joining ASCAP in 1946, his chief musical collaborators included Johnny Mercer and Walter O'Keefe, and his other popular-song compositions include "Your Heart Will Tell You So", "At Last I'm in Love", "Little By Little", "Hullabaloo", "Song of the Highwayman", "You", "Out of the Past", "I Love You", "And So to Bed", "Glamour Waltz", "Big Movie Show in the Sky", "A Month of Sundays", and "Talk to Me, Baby".