Well they had a song but now they needed a record. It went on to become one of the biggest hits in history and I never saw the fountain, never saw the picture,” he said proudly. But it would take Styne only about twenty minutes. Now you could spend a hundred years figuring out notes to these words,” he said. “I gave the lyrics to composer Jules Styne. While the words came easy enough to Cahn, he knew that was only half of the job. “I went to the typewriter and I typed, three coins in a fountain, each one seeking happiness, thrown by three hopeful lovers, which one will the fountain bless.” “Well we had a title, a pretty good clue,” said Cahn. “Three girls go to Rome, they throw coins in a fountain and they hope they fall in love.” And with that the producer left. “Would you mind telling me what this picture’s about?” Cahn asked. “I looked at him and I said I can write you a song called ‘Eh.’”Ĭahn asked the obvious questions, “I said can we see the picture? He says ‘you can’t see the picture it’s all over the lot.’ I said can we read the script? ‘The scripts in Italy,’” the producer responded. “One day we’re hanging around and the door opens and the producer walks in and says ‘Can you fellows write me a song called three coins in a fountain?’” Cahn’s answer showed he was more than up to the challenge. It’s a break that wouldn’t last for long. “When the picture’s about to start Miss Monroe runs off to Japan with some baseball player called Joe DiMaggio leaving us all there without anything,” said Cahn. But it was music that would never be heard.
We wrote one of the best scores we ever wrote,” recalled Cahn.
WHO WROTE LET IT SNOW FULL
With full showmanship a light went on, his smile widens and he says to me “We were doing a picture called Pink Tights, with Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe and Dan Dailey. We were wrapping up our interview when I said to him that I recalled hearing a story behind “Three Coins in a Fountain” which won Cahn his first Academy Award in 1954. I said can I grab a word with you? He said “have a seat.” So I went up to this gentleman and I said “excuse me sir are you Sammy Cahn?” His face lit up at the fact some 20-something-year-old reporter knew who he was. I thought to myself “is it him? No, they didn’t introduce him earlier so it couldn’t be. It was there that I spotted an older gentleman sitting alone at a table. Once we finished taping we made our way into a reception that followed. Three months before his death I was working in Atlantic City covering the opening of a local chapter of ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers).īurt Bacharach and other notable artists were there for the news conference and afterwards I did my interviews with him and several others.
Among his classics are “Love & Marriage,” “All the Way,” “High Hopes,” “Come Fly with Me,” “Three Coins In A Fountain,” “My Kind of Town” and countless (and I mean countless) others.Īs I heard “Let it Snow” recently I got to thinking about Sammy Cahn who died in January of 1993. At one point or another over the holidays you will undoubtedly hear the holiday tune “Let It Snow.” The classic that rose to #1 on the Billboard charts in 1946 was written by the legendary Sammy Cahn.Ĭahn wrote more of Frank Sinatra’s hits than any other songwriter with Sinatra recording 89 of his songs.
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