Lane, Burton

Lane, Burton

 orig. Burton Levy

(born Feb. 2, 1912, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Jan. 5, 1997, New York City) U.S. songwriter. Lane worked in Tin Pan Alley, where he came to the attention of George Gershwin. His tunes were featured on Broadway from the early 1930s and were later heard in films, including Babes on Broadway (1942). His greatest success came with Finian's Rainbow (1947; film, 1968), for which he worked with lyricist E.Y. Harburg. He collaborated with Alan Jay Lerner on the film Royal Wedding (1951). Another joint effort with Lerner, On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1965; film, 1970), gave Lane his last notable success.

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Lane, Burton (b. Burton Levy) (1912–  ) composer; born in New York City. In the 1930s he contributed songs to Broadway revues and was a free-lance composer in Hollywood. He wrote his first complete score with E. Y. Harburg for the Broadway musical Hold On to Your Hats (1940) and in 1947 he and Harburg wrote the Broadway classic, Finian's Rainbow. From 1957 to 1967 he was president of the American Guild of Authors and Composers and he continued writing songs throughout the 1970s and 1980s.