- Born
- Died
- Birth nameKarl Rudolf Friml
- Composer, songwriter ("Donkey Serenade", "Song of the Vagabonds") and pianist, educated at the Prague Conservatory and a music student of Anton Dvorak and Jiranek. He toured Europe as a concert pianist with violinist Jan Kubelik, and then toured America in 1901 and 1906. In 1912 he replaced Victor Herbert as the composer of the score for the Broadway musical "The Firefly". His other Broadway sage scores include "High Jinks", "The Peasant Girl", "Katinka", "You're In Love", "Sometime", "Glorianna", "Tumble In", "The Little Whopper", "June Love", "The Blue Kitten", "Rose-Marie", "The Vagabond King", "No Foolin'", "The Wild Rose", and "The Three Musketeers". He came to Hollywood in 1934. Joining ASCAP as a charter member in 1914, his chief musical collaborators included Otto Harbach, P.G. Wodehouse, Rida Johnson Young, Oscar Hammerstein II, Brian Hooker, Clifford Grey, Harold Atteridge, and Dailey Paskman. His other popular-song compositions include "Giannina Mia", "Love is Like a Firefly", "When a Maid Comes Knocking at Your Door", "Sympathy", "Something Seems a Tingle-ing-eling", "Love's Own Kiss", "Katinka", "Not Now But Later", "'Tis the End, So Farewell", "Allah's Holiday", "Rackety Coo", "L'Amour, Toujours, L'Amour", "On the Blue Lagoon", "In Love With Love", "Somewhere in My Heart", "You're In Love", "Cutie", "The Door of Her Dreams", "Rose-Marie", "The Mounties", "Pretty Things", "Totem Tom-Tom", "Some Day", "Tomorrow", "Only a Rose", "Huguette Waltz", "Love Me Tonight", "Nocturne", "Wild Rose", "One Golden Hour", "Give Me One Hour", "March of the Musketeers", "Ma Belle", "Your Eyes", and "I Have the Love"- IMDb Mini Biography By: Hup234!
- SpousesKay Wong Ling Friml(April 16, 1957 - November 12, 1972) (his death)Elsie Lawson(1919 - ?) (divorced, 1 child)Blanch Betters(1917 - 1918) (divorced)Mathilde Baruch(May 26, 1909 - 1915) (divorced, 2 children)
- Stepgrandfather of composer Kim Fowley.
- Father-in-law of Shelby Payne.
- Father of Rudolf Friml Jr., who is sometimes confused with his father. Friml Jr. is a bandleader who sometimes made unbilled appearances in films. One of his few screen credits was as a pianist in an anti-marijuana B-movie. Friml Sr., the operetta composer, never made any film appearances, though he wrote music for quite a few films. Several of his stage operettas were filmed, the most famous being the wildly successful 1936 film version of Rose-Marie (1936), with Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy.
- His operetta "The Vagabond King" is the first of his famed stage works to be given a full-length recording (both music and dialogue). The recording, sung by the Ohio Light Opera, was released in early 2005.
- Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1971.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content