Dory Previn

Dory Previn was a successful lyricist for motion picture theme songs during the 1960s and early 1970s, earning three Academy Award nominations for best song; in the mid-1970s and early 1980s, she published books of memoirs and wrote and performed in musical theater works. But she remains best known for the six albums of original songs and one live album she released in a confessional, singer-songwriter style between 1970 and 1976. Previn was born on October 22. Different sources list the year of her birth as early as 1925, though 1929 seems most probable. She was deeply influenced by her father, who was mentally disturbed due to his experience in World War I, and she had a difficult childhood. She began to perform in her teens and after high school attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts for a year. Thereafter, she was worked as an actress and a dancer, until she began writing song lyrics, which landed her a job at MGM where she wrote under the name Dory Langdon. She was assigned to collaborate with composer André Previn, with whom she became romantically involved. In May 1957, she recorded an album of her songs, The Leprechauns Are Upon Me, with Previn and Kenny Burrell accompanying her, for Verve Records. She and Previn married on November 7, 1959. In 1960, continuing to use the name Dory Langdon, she began to get frequent assignments to write lyrics for songs used in motion pictures, usually in collaboration with her husband. That year, the Previn-Langdon song "The Faraway Part Of Town," sung in the film Pepe by Judy Garland, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song. The Previns' "A Second Chance" from the 1962 film Two For The Seesaw earned them another nomination. They also wrote independent songs, and during the early 1960s they had cuts on albums...