George Michael Cohan was a great American playwright, composer, producer, and actor. He was famous for his fast-paced style as a song-dance man and for his lively musicals, which set the trend on Broadway in the 1920s. Cohan was a dedicated man who spent 56 of his 64 years on the stage. During his lifetime, he wrote 40 plays, collaborated with others on another 40 plays, and shared production of still another 150 plays. He made over a 1000 appearances as an actor. Some of the more than 500 songs that he wrote were major national hits. Born in Providence, Rhode Island on the 4th of July, George Michael was named after George Washington. It seems George Michael Cohan was destine to be a patriotic leader from the beginning. His parents were circuit-traveling vaudevillians, Jeremiah and Helen Cohan, who had three children. The first died in infancy, George was the second child and Josephine followed him two years later. The life of all vaudevillians in those days was to have the family 'lived out of a trunk', traveling from town to town, staying in shabby boarding houses. Often the children would sleep in the theater dressing room while the parents were on stage. George had only a mild taste of public school education, as well as just a few lessons on the violin. The theater became his school, - and he was an apt pupil. He appeared in one of his parent's stage sketches as a 'prop' while still an infant. When he was nine years old, he became a member of the act, with his sister Josephine joining him just one year later. Now, the act was officially known as 'The Four Cohans'. George would do sentimental recitations, and often perform a "buck and wing dance." By age 11, he was writing special material, and by age 13, he was writing songs and lyrics for the act. He was just 16 years old when in 1894, he sold his first song, "Why Did Nellie Leave Home?" to Witmark Music Publishing for twenty-five dol...
