Dory Previn

Dory Previn achieved prominence as a lyricist for motion picture theme songs throughout the 1960s and the opening years of the 1970s, collecting three Academy Award nominations for best song. During the mid-1970s and early 1980s she issued memoir volumes while also composing and appearing in musical theater productions. Her greatest renown nevertheless rests on the six original-song albums plus one live set she issued in confessional singer/songwriter mode from 1970 to 1976.

Born October 22, with sources citing birth years as early as 1925 though 1929 is regarded as likeliest, Previn absorbed a profound influence from her father, whose mental instability traced to his World War I service and produced a troubled upbringing for her. She started performing during adolescence, then studied for one year at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts after high school. Subsequent work as an actress and dancer preceded her entry into songwriting, which secured employment at MGM under the professional name Dory Langdon. There she was paired with composer André Previn, and the two soon began a romantic relationship. In May 1957 she recorded the Verve album The Leprechauns Are Upon Me, backed by Previn and Kenny Burrell. She and Previn wed on November 7, 1959.

Continuing under the name Dory Langdon, she received regular film lyric assignments in 1960, most often collaborating with her husband. That year the Previn-Langdon composition “The Faraway Part of Town,” performed by Judy Garland in the picture Pepe, earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Song. Their follow-up “A Second Chance” from the 1962 film Two for the Seesaw brought another nomination. Independent songs by the Previns also appeared on albums by Doris Day, Eileen Farrell, and Jack Jones in the early 1960s, while motion-picture numbers they supplied were interpreted by Bobby Darin, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Eddie Fisher. In 1964 Dory Previn joined Harold Arlen to write “So Long, Big Time!,” later cut by Tony Bennett for The Many Moods of Tony.

A nervous breakdown in 1965 led to brief institutionalization, yet she persisted in writing with her husband and adopted the professional name Dory Previn. Frank Sinatra included their song “You’re Gonna Hear from Me” from the 1965 film Inside Daisy Clover on his 1966 album That’s Life. Their final joint project yielded some of their most successful material: five songs for the 1967 film Valley of the Dolls. The soundtrack album remained on the charts for six months, Dionne Warwick reached the Top Ten with the theme song, and Warwick’s own Valley of the Dolls LP attained gold status.

By the late 1960s André Previn had shifted from film scoring to international orchestral conducting and taken up residence abroad. He began a relationship with 24-year-old actress Mia Farrow; once her pregnancy by him became public, the Previns separated in spring 1969. Their divorce was finalized in July 1970, after which André Previn married Farrow. Dory Previn voiced her anger in the song “Beware of Young Girls.” Following another institutionalization prompted by the marriage’s collapse, she resumed film work in a more introspective vein already signaled by “(Theme From) Valley of the Dolls” and exemplified in her next major contribution, “Come Saturday Morning” (music by Fred Karlin) from The Sterile Cuckoo (1969). The Sandpipers’ single version reached the Top 40 and earned Previn her third Oscar nomination.

She signed with Mediarts, the new label established by former Capitol executive Alan Livingston and producer Nik Venet. Mediarts’ inaugural release, On My Way to Where (July 1970), sold 25,000 copies and marked her first album in thirteen years; its lyrics appeared in book form the following year. Her second album, Mythical Kings and Iguanas (1971), exceeded 50,000 copies. After United Artists acquired Mediarts, the label reissued her initial two albums and issued the third, Reflections in a Mud Puddle/Taps Tremors and Time Steps, later in 1971. The 1972 release Mary C. Brown and the Hollywood Sign assembled songs about Hollywood outsiders originally intended for a musical revue that played briefly in Los Angeles that November. Her screenplay Third Girl from the Left was adapted into an ABC television movie aired March 10, 1973; she also supplied and performed the title song.

Because Previn declined to fly, live appearances remained infrequent and commercial reach stayed modest, although four albums narrowly missed the Top 200. She nevertheless gave occasional concerts, including one at Carnegie Hall on April 18, 1973, later issued as the double-LP Live at Carnegie Hall. Switching to Warner Bros., she released Dory Previn in 1974 and We’re Children of Coincidence and Harpo Marx in 1976. That same year her first autobiography, Midnight Baby, appeared, followed by the second volume, Bog-Trotter, in 1980. Also in 1980 she staged the musical revue Children of Coincidence in Dublin; the production was filmed and broadcast on Irish television as Hunky Dory.

After the early 1980s Previn maintained a low profile, though she performed in London as late as 1986 and completed the stage work The Flight of the Gooney Bird. In the late 1990s her catalog came under Williamson Music, the publishing division of the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization, which issued The Dory Previn Songbook with illustrations by her husband Joby Baker.

Planet Blue, Previn’s antinuclear and environmentally themed recording issued in protest against the Iraq war, became available as a free Internet download in 2002. Despite several strokes that impaired her vision, she continued writing through the 2000s. EMI released the early-1970s compilation The Art of Dory Previn in January 2008. BGO Records in England licensed and reissued her United Artists albums on CD. Previn died of natural causes at her Massachusetts farm on February 14, 2012.