An evening with Irving Berlin

Five quotations from the great Irving Berlin:

“The toughest thing about success is that you’ve got to keep on being a success.”

“Life is 10 percent what you make it, and 90 percent how you take it.”

“After you get what you want you don’t want it.”

“Every man should have a Lower East Side in his life.”  (referring to his early-childhood poverty)

“I gave up trying to get your mother to economize,” he said to his daughter about his wife’s lavish Christmas spending.  “It was easier just to make more money.”  (He was a very committed Jew, but he loved Christmas.)

My wife and I attended a performance of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas this evening in the still-new George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Theater.  Based on the the 1954 film, it’s pretty corny, and the plot is fairly predictable, but the music — including the title song and “Count Your Blessings (Instead of Sheep)” —  is . . . well, Irving Berlin.

Back in 1999, I related what I think is an absolutely hilarious story about Irving Berlin and (of all people) Sir Winston Churchill:

http://publications.mi.byu.edu/publications/review/11/1/S00001-51b7595e5091a1Peterson.pdf

Really.  It’s quite funny.

Posted from Salt Lake City, Utah