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Anne Caldwell: "She's a Good Fellow"

Actress, singer, lyricist, composer, magazine and newspaper writer, librettist, playwright -- Anne Caldwell could claim any of these titles as her own. Born into a proper middle-class family in 1876 at a time of little opportunity for women, the author of such classic songs as "Peg o' My Heart" and "Whose Baby Are You" became the most successful woman lyricist and playwright of her time.

Her father was master of Boston Latin School and her mother an accomplished musician and pianist. Before she could talk, Anne was humming her own songs. Instead of playing with dolls, she pilfered her father's writing paper to create fanciful librettos for the classical melodies her mother played daily on the family piano. Starting at an early age, she wrote vaudeville sketches, magazine articles, and ghost-wrote several plays, determined to break the gender barrier that existed for female playwrights at the turn of the century.

"I went on the stage when I was of age and gained a good deal of practical experience." Caldwell said, "I knew that I would never play Juliet or Desdemona, but I wanted to know about the stage...I would not be satisfied if I wrote books and they were read in the quiet nooks of libraries. I wanted someone to read my lines and I wanted people to hear them."

Caldwell worked as a singing and dancing comedienne in operetta until she tripped on stage and broke her leg. To pass the time, she wrote lyrics in her hospital bed and discovered that she could write as well as any of the male lyricists she admired. Her first submissions to producers were discouraging. "What makes you think you can write plays?" was the typical response of a theater manager skeptical of a woman songwriter's ability to draw crowds.

Her ambitions were finally realized when she moved to New York and met aspiring composer and future husband-to-be James O'Dea, author of such popular hits as "The Sweetest Girl in Dixie." Their first collaboration in 1910, "Top o' The World" was a moderate success with lyrics by Caldwell and O'Dea.

She quickly followed with a non-musical comedy smash, "The Nest Egg." Suddenly, critics announced a daring new talent on Broadway -- a lady playwright.

For the next 22 years, Caldwell would write over 30 successful plays and musicals such as "The Lady of the Slipper," "Hitchy-koo," "Three Cheers," "Maytime," and the enormous hit, "Chin-Chin," in 1914, complete with a set by Joseph Urban and a cast of 100 dancing girls.

Working for the great producer Charles Dillingham and the team of Montgomery and Stone, her reputation grew as a writer and play doctor. Caldwell created a stir after successfully rewriting a failing show the day before its scheduled opening.

She and O'Dea bought a large house in Rockville Center, Long Island, where they raised their daughter Molly and held "Sleep Parties" in which she invited exhausted actresses and fellow writers to rest at her comfortable home away from the bustle of Manhattan. A co- founder of ASCAP and secretary of the World's Service Council of the YMCA, Caldwell was a smart businesswoman who also managed a taxicab service in Long Island for her neighbors.

For all her success, she was still judged in many ways as a woman of her time. Caldwell could not escape the censure of critics who remarked on her unattractiveness and "masculine" wrote books and pursuits. She became insecure about her looks and began to publish her daughter's picture as her own.

Caldwell remembered when one young expectant fan rushed up to her after a show. "knew that she wanted Anne Caldwell the author to look like something she had in mind, probably a Marine Elliott or Billie Burke," Caldwell said. "Poor little thing, didn't want to break her heart, so replied, "No, my dear, I am Anne Caldwell's mother." This delighted her and she smiled as if someone had handed her a big box of candy."

She also endured the indignity of managers tried to cheat her out of her royalty payments and spent much time in court fighting for her contractual rights. Greater tragedy struck in 1914 when her beloved husband and partner died of pneumonia after a year-long battle. Weakened by grief, Caldwell contracted malaria and was incapacitated for six months. Slow to recuperate, she adopted a son, Patrick, and continued to write plays and musicals.

Her distinguished collaborators would include Otto Harbach, Will Rogers, Vincent Youmans and Jerome Kern. In 1929, she left New York for Hollywood to work at RKO Studios on the new "talking pictures." Her film work included the classic "Flying Down to Rio," (which introduced Astaire and Rogers) "Dixiana," and "Babes in Toyland."

She remained in Hollywood, working on individual projects until her death in 1936. Hailed for having trailblazed a path for later women lyricists like Dorothy Fields, Caldwell downplayed her pioneering role in the male-dominated musical theatre.

"I would rather make people laugh than anything else," she admitted. "A good laugh is fine for everyone, and providing it gives me more pleasure than anything else in the world."