Biography
Born in Brooklyn in 1900 as James Kimble Gannon, the future American pop lyricist Kim Gannon earned a law degree from Albany Law School and gained admission to the New York bar in 1934. Five years later he pivoted to songwriting, securing publication of his debut number “For Tonight” that same year. Film assignments soon followed, beginning with the title song for Always in My Heart (1942) and continuing with contributions to Powers Girl (1943), If Winter Comes (1947), and additional screen projects. Entering the new decade, Gannon supplied the 1951 Broadway score for Seventeen in collaboration with composer Walter Kent. Across his career he partnered with numerous other composers, among them Max Steiner, J. Fred Coots, and Mabel Wayne. His string of hits from the 1940s and ’50s encompassed “I Understand” (1940), “Moonlight Cocktail” (1942), the 1943 classic “I’ll Be Home for Christmas,” “A Dreamer’s Holiday” (1949), “Under Paris Skies” (1953), and the final success “I Want to Be Wanted” in 1960.