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Bert Kalmar (February 10, 1884 - September 18, 1947) was a Jewish American lyricist. He was born in New York, New York. He ran away from home at the age of 10 to become a magician at a tent show, and retained an interest in magic all his life. He never got much of an education, but decided to make a career in show business. He earned enough money as a vaudeville performer to start a music publishing company, Kalmar and Puck. He hired Harry Ruby as a song plugger, and as a result of a knee injury that stopped him from dancing professionally, turned to writing song lyrics full-time. Ruby,... MORE

Bert Kalmar (February 10, 1884 - September 18, 1947) was a Jewish American lyricist. He was born in New York, New York. He ran away from home at the age of 10 to become a magician at a tent show, and retained an interest in magic all his life. He never got much of an education, but decided to make a career in show business. He earned enough money as a vaudeville performer to start a music publishing company, Kalmar and Puck. He hired Harry Ruby as a song plugger, and as a result of a knee injury that stopped him from dancing professionally, turned to writing song lyrics full-time. Ruby, who had got a job at the firm of "'Waterson, Berlin and Snyder'," got Kalmar a job at the same firm writing song lyrics. Before World War I he had begun to write lyrics for a number of different composers. One of them, Ruby, who had also had a number of collaborators, saw a strong compatibility between the two, and by 1920 Kalmar and Ruby recognized that they should form a permanent songwriting team. Their partnership resulted in some of the most well-known songs featured in the Marx Brothers' Broadway production of Animal Crackers (1928) as well as the film of the same name. Kalmar and Ruby's songs LESS