Biography
George David Weiss entered the world in New York City in 1921 and trained at Juilliard. Before his World War II military service, he performed on reeds and violin with several dance bands. Once he turned to songwriting in the mid-1940s, Weiss scored immediate successes with pieces such as “Oh, What It Seemed to Be” and “How Could I?” Additional well-known compositions followed, among them “I’ll Never Be Free,” “Too Close for Comfort,” “That Sunday That Summer,” and “Can't Help Falling in Love.” His activity as a songwriter stretched from the mid-1940s into the early 1960s and also encompassed songs for late-1940s animated films. He supplied co-written scores for the Broadway productions Mr. Wonderful, which placed Sammy Davis Jr. in its original 1956 cast, and First Impressions (1959), and he created the music for Tale of Cinderella: New Musical for the Whole Family. Recordings of his work have been made by Tom Jones, Mel Tormé, Elvis Presley, Dinah Washington, the Stylistics, Tennessee Ernie Ford, and Sammy Davis Jr. Bennie Benjamin functioned as his principal collaborator. In later years Weiss served as president of the Songwriters Guild of America.