Harry Ruby

Who was Harry Ruby?

Harry Ruby was a Jewish American composer and screenwriter, who was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.

Ruby was born in New York City. After failing at his early ambition to become a professional baseball player, he toured the vaudeville circuit as a pianist with the Bootblack Trio and the Messenger Boys Trio until meeting the man who would become his longtime partner, lyricist Bert Kalmar. Kalmar and Ruby were a successful songwriting team for nearly three decades until Kalmar's death in 1947, a partnership portrayed in the 1950 MGM musical Three Little Words, starring Fred Astaire as Kalmar and Red Skelton as Ruby.

Harry Ruby died in Woodland Hills, California and was interred at the Chapel of the Pines in Los Angeles.

A good friend of Groucho Marx, Ruby appeared several times on his television program, You Bet Your Life. In his 1972 concert at Carnegie Hall, Marx gave the following introduction before performing a song of Ruby's: "I have a friend in Hollywood . . . I think I do, I'm not so sure. [laughter] His name is Harry Ruby [applause] and he wrote a lot of songs that I've sung over the years . . ."

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