Loewe was born in
Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany, to
Viennese parents Edmund and Rosa Loewe. His father was a Jewish
operetta star who performed throughout Europe and in
North and South America; he starred as Count Danilo in the 1906 Berlin production of
The Merry Widow. Loewe grew up in Berlin and attended a
Prussian cadet school from the age of five until he was thirteen. At an early age Loewe learned to play piano by ear and helped his father rehearse, and he began composing songs at age seven. He eventually attended the
Stern Conservatory in Berlin, one year behind
Claudio Arrau, and studied with
Ferruccio Busoni and
Eugene d'Albert. He won the coveted Hollander Medal awarded by the school and gave performances as a concert pianist while still in Germany. At 13, he was the youngest piano soloist ever to appear with the
Berlin Philharmonic. In 1924, his father received an offer to appear in New York City, and Loewe traveled there with him, determined to write for
Broadway. This proved to be difficult. He eventually found work playing piano in German clubs in
Yorkville and in movie theaters as the accompanist for silent films. In 1931, he married Ernestine Zerline. Childless, they divorced in 1957. Loewe began to visit the
Lambs Club, a hangout for theater performers, producers, managers and directors. He credited The Lambs for keeping him working until his career expanded, and left a share of his royalties of
Brigadoon to The Lambs Foundation. He met
Alan Jay Lerner there in 1942. Their first collaboration was a musical adaptation of Barry Connor's farce
The Patsy, called
Life of the Party, for a Detroit
stock company. It enjoyed a nine-week run and encouraged the duo to join forces with
Arthur Pierson for ''
What's Up?'', which opened on Broadway in 1943. Their first hit was
Brigadoon, a romantic fantasy set in a mystical Scottish village, directed by
Robert Lewis with choreography by
Agnes de Mille. It spawned the songs "
Almost Like Being in Love" and "
The Heather on the Hill", both of which became standards. It was followed in 1951 by the less successful
Gold Rush story
Paint Your Wagon, According to
Playbill, "The show achieved an unprecedented advance sale of three and a half million dollars, propelled in part by a preview on the Ed Sullivan Show that featured its stars, Richard Burton and Julie Andrews."
Camelot ran for 873 performances. Loewe then decided to retire to
Palm Springs, California, where he bought a home in 1960. For many years he did not write anything until he was approached by Lerner to augment the
Gigi film score with additional tunes for a
1973 stage adaptation, which won him his second Tony, this time for Best Original Score. This film was a critical failure, but the soundtrack recording and the film itself are in print on CD and DVD. Loewe and Lerner were nominated for the 1974 Academy Award for Best Song and Best Adapted or Original Song Score (with
Angela Morley and
Douglas Gamley). Loewe was inducted into the
Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972. Seven years later, in 1979, he was inducted into the
American Theater Hall of Fame. Loewe remained in Palm Springs until his death at 86. The cause of death was cardiac arrest, according to John F. Morris, an artist and longtime friend. He had a Golden Palm Star on the
Palm Springs Walk of Stars dedicated to him in 1995. He was buried in the
Desert Memorial Park in
Cathedral City, California. ==Notes==