Composer, songwriter ("Yellow Rose of Texas", "I'm Beginning to See the Light"), author and artist, educated in New York public schools. He wrote special material for Nat "King" Cole, Patti Page, Fran Warren and Ida Lupino, and he wrote the stage score for "Wet Paint". As an artist, he has held one-man shows for his works. Joining ASCAP in 1942, his chief musical collaborators included Duke Ellington, Mabel Wayne, Steve Allen, Oscar Levant, Peter De Rose, Nat "King" Cole, Harry James and Bee Walker. His other popular-song compositions include "Papa Niccolini", "I Never Mention Your Name", "Calypso Blues", "Beautiful Blonde from Bashful Bend", "Eleven Sixty P.M.", "Cuban Nightingale", "Coal Dust on the Fiddle", "I Was Telling Her About You", "Mambo, Tango, Samba, Calypso, Rhumba Blues", "Slowly With Feeling", "A Touch of the Blues", "The Magic Fountain", "Two Thirds of he Tennessee River", "Holiday in Brussels", "Tropical Trade Winds", "It Shouldn't Happen to a Dream", "When Will I Forget You", and "The Right Kind of Love"