Biography
Irving Kahal, a lyricist specializing in pop material for Broadway and Hollywood, enjoyed notable prosperity from the final years of the 1920s through the 1930s. Pennsylvania was the site of his birth in 1903; while still young he performed as a vocalist in vaudeville before joining a traveling ensemble directed by Gus Edwards. During that association he encountered songwriter Sammy Fain, who was also active in the vaudeville circuit. From the mid-1920s onward the pair generated stage and screen hits as well as independent successes that included “Let a Smile Be Your Umbrella” (1928), “Wedding Bells (Are Breaking Up That Old Gang of Mine)” (1929), “You Brought a New Kind of Love to Me” (1930), “When I Take My Sugar to Tea” (1931), “I Can Dream, Can't I?,” and “I'll Be Seeing You” (1938). Their compositions featured in the movie musicals The Big Pond (1930), Footlight Parade (1933), and Harold Teen (1934). The 17-year collaboration between Kahal and Fain concluded with the lyricist’s death in N.Y.C. in 1942.