| Chapter 8: | The Movies |
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of “Gone with the Wind.” He served as a mediator in settling business disputes among studio executives.27
Many of the films I saw at the Rex and elsewhere had musical scores by an Italian American born in Brooklyn, Salvatore Guaragna. His parents were immigrants from Calabria, Italy. By the time he was registered for school his parents had changed the family name to Warren and his first name to Harry. A self taught musician, he began to find success as a songwriter in the 1920’s. He wrote for Broadway musicals but decided to go to Hollywood since movie musicals had become popular with theater audiences. Beginning with the hit musical film “42nd Street” choreographed by Busby Berkeley with music by Harry Warren, he wrote many of the most popular songs of the early twentieth century for films. Among my favorites growing up in East Harlem were “Shuffle Off to Buffalo,” “Chattanooga Choo Choo,” “I Had the Craziest Dream,” and “On the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe.” He worked for Warner Brothers, Twentieth Century-Fox, MGM and Paramount. The popular hit “That’s Amore” was written for Dean Martin. He was financially successful but received little recognition for his musical accomplishments. He avoided publicity. He wrote primarily for movie musicals and his works were buried in the credits.28
Some of the films I saw in New York theaters were directed by a fellow Sicilian, Frank Capra. Capra was born in Bisacquino, Sicily in 1897. The family moved to a poor Sicilian neighborhood in Los Angeles. Frank was the only one of his parents’ fourteen children to attend college, graduating as a chemical engineer. He found jobs as a gag writer first for the Hal Roach studios and later for Mack