Clarence Wainwright Murphy

Who was Clarence Wainwright Murphy?

Clarence Wainwright Murphy, also known as Charles William Murphy, C.W. Murphy and C. Murphy, was a prolific British composer of music hall and musical theatre tunes, perhaps best known for the song "Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?" with lyrics by Will Letters. In 1926, "Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?" was made into an animated short of the same title directed by Dave Fleischer, and in 1928 into a feature film directed by William Wyler. The song was also performed in the 1943 film Hello Frisco, Hello. With frequent collaborator Dan Lipton he also wrote "My Girl's a Yorkshire Girl", mentioned by James Joyce in his novel Ulysses and also turned into a 1909 short sound film of the same name. Another song, "Little Yellow-bird", written with lyricist W. Hargreave, can be seen performed by Scottish comedian Charlie Naughton in the 1938 film Alf's Button Afloat and by Angela Lansbury in the 1945 film The Picture of Dorian Gray and again by Lansbury in the 1985 episode "Sing a Song of Murder" from her TV series Murder, She Wrote.