When I was seven years old, The Wizard of Oz was my favorite movie.
I watched it every time it came on TV (this was before home video) until I knew the songs and most of the dialog by heart.
I typed up as much as I could remember on my dad’s Selectric, in script format, figuring I’d stage it and charge admission. But there were some gaps.
I took the Manhattan white pages directory from my parents’ bedroom and looked up E.Y. Harburg, whose name was in the credits. The conversation went something like this:
YH: Hello?
Me: Hello. Is this E.Y. Harburg?
YH: Yes…?
Me: Did you write the lyrics for The Wizard of Oz?
YH: Yes, I did.
Me: Can you tell me the first line of the Cowardly Lion’s song, because I didn’t understand it.
YH: “It’s sad, believe me, Missy / When you’re born to be a sissy / Without the vim and verve / But I could show my prowess / Be a lion, not a mowess / If I only had the nerve.”
Me: OK. Also, what does the Tin Woodman sing after “I hear a beat, how sweet…”
YH: “Just to register emotion / Jealousy, devotion / And really feel the part / Just because I’m presumin’ / That I could be kind of human / If I only had a heart.”
I got what I needed, thanked him, and hung up.
In retrospect, from an adult perspective, it does sort of make sense that a Broadway lyricist who’d been blacklisted by Hollywood would, in his 70s, be living in an apartment in Manhattan and answering his own phone in the middle of the afternoon. At the time, being a kid, I just took it for granted. I don’t think I even thought the call noteworthy enough to mention to my parents.
Blog
Haha, lovely. I was really shy as a kid, so I don’t think I would have thought of something like that.
You probably made his day, Jordan. Any of us should be so lucky to have our work so long remembered and cherished.
Nice story! Thanks for sharing it.
Hahaha, wonderful.