‘Ira Gershwin: A Life in Words’
By Michael Owen
Liveright, 416 Pages

Ira Gershwin never saw himself as the main attraction: Brother George Gershwin was so inventive, so quick, that for quite some time Ira simply could not keep up, failing to find enough words, or the right words, to do justice to the music of the family prodigy.

At the piano, George’s music poured out; Ira procrastinated, complaining he was not ready, yet he eventually got down to business. At hand was an array of reference books and rhyming dictionaries that eventuated in such beautiful songs as “Fascinating Rhythm” and “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.”

After George died of a brain tumor at age 38 in 1937, the devastated family carried on. Ira did all he could to protect and promote the magnificence of the composer of “Rhapsody in Blue” and so much of what has been called the American Songbook. That Ira continued to excel as a lyricist is a tribute not only to his talent but to a stalwart wife everyone called Lee and no one wanted to cross. She had a habit of disconcerting even Ira’s steadfast friends and business associates.

The mild-mannered, self-effacing Ira needed a Lee to safeguard his legacy.  I met her for an interview about a friend, Lillian Hellman, and I got the Lee treatment. She was quite informative, but at the end of our confab, as I was exiting her home, she gave me a piercing look and asked, “Why do you always say, ‘Yeah’?” What could I say, except, “Yeah”?

Michael Owen is a scrupulous biographer — as scrupulous as his subject, who never wanted to take more credit for the Gershwin success than he thought was owed to him. Ira’s working methods with his brother and other composers are detailed in engaging prose that explains, say, Ira’s use of four-syllable rhymes. His effervescent and light-hearted lyrics are, in fact, the result of a painstaking process.

Those not versed in what goes on in “Porgy and Bess” and other Gershwin productions may feel a little lost. Mr. Owen does not say much about why the opera has been controversial. Today, “Porgy and Bess” might be accused of being the product of two Jewish New Yorkers appropriating the Black experience — though a white South Carolinian, DuBose Hayward, author of the libretto, would have to be part of the complaint.

Mr. Owen makes clear that the Gershwins were an assimilationist family, hardly acknowledging their Jewish heritage or religion. On the contrary, they wanted to absorb all America had to offer, and it is curious that Mr. Owen does not make more of that point as a way of describing “Porgy and Bess,” set in the slums of Charleston, South Carolina, and featuring a cast of flamboyant African Americans, including Sportin’ Life, a violent drug dealer. 

One of the endearing qualities that Ira shared with his brother George was his lack of snobbery — a point to emphasize, I think, when discussing their forays into the subcultures of America. Ira was perhaps even more demotic than George, who preferred New York City to Hollywood, where Ira happily settled, almost never wanting to return east, where his family made demands on him.

Especially moving is Ira’s last act, so to speak: welcoming into his home the youthful Michael Feinstein, who helped to preserve and popularize the Gershwin music to a new generation. Ira was in his 80s when Mr. Feinstein came calling, and Mr. Owen is right to show that Mr. Feinstein livened up Ira’s last years as he succumbed to various ailments. I know how that transfer of energy can occur, as it did when I came upon a devastated Michael Foot, an octogenarian retired from his role as Labour Party leader and mourning his wife, Jill Craigie, who became the subject of my biography.

Above all, Mr. Owen presents an artist who was always honest with himself, who accepted his failures and enjoyed his successes modestly.  When a song or a show or a play did not work out, he rarely blamed anyone but himself.

In Mr. Owen’s book, we can admire the nobility of an artist who strove for excellence and never forgot to honor the brother who drove him to it. 

Mr. Rollyson is the author of “Lillian Hellman: Her Life and Legacy,” “To Be a Woman: The Life of Jill Craigie,” and “A Private Life of Michael Foot.”