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{{Short description|English songwriter, actor and screenwriter (1887–1941)}}
{{Distinguish|Clifford Gray (disambiguation){{!}}Clifford Gray}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=
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[[File:clifford-grey-1921.jpg|thumb|right|Grey in 1921]]
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==Life and career==
===Early years===
Grey was born in [[Birmingham]], Warwickshire, the son of George Davis, a whip manufacturer, and his wife Emma, ''née'' Lowe. He was educated at
In 1916 Grey had his big breakthrough as a writer, collaborating with the American composer [[Nat Ayer]] on ''[[The Bing Boys Are Here]]'', a long-running [[revue]] that opened in London in April, and contained two of Grey's early successes, "[[If You Were the Only Girl (In the World)]]" and "Another Little Drink Wouldn't Do Us Any Harm". He collaborated with Ayer on ''Pell-Mell'', ''The Bing Girls Are There'', ''The Other Bing Boys'', ''The Bing Brothers on Broadway'', and ''[[Yes, Uncle!]]'' and with [[Herman Finck]] in ''Hallo, America!'', [[Ivor Novello]] and [[Jerome Kern]] in ''[[Theodore & Co]]'', [[Howard Talbot]] and Novello in ''Who's Hooper?'', Novello in ''[[Arlette (musical)|Arlette]]'' (1917) and [[Ivan Caryll]] in ''[[Kissing Time]]''.<ref name=oxford>[http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/epm/10890?q=Clifford+Grey&source=omo_epm&source=omo_t237&source=omo_gmo&source=omo_t114&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1 "Grey, Clifford"], ''Encyclopedia of Popular Music'', Oxford University Press, 11 July 2006, Oxford Music Online, accessed 28 August 2010. {{subscription required}}</ref> On the last show he collaborated with [[P.G. Wodehouse]],<ref>Jason, p, 82</ref> who was privately lukewarm about Grey's talent, regarding him as a specialist in adapting other people's work rather than as an original talent.{{refn|According to the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Wodehouse's views did not prevent his purchasing a plot from Grey on one occasion.<ref name=dnb/>|group= n}} At the same time, he acted in a dozen silent films, including ''[[The Crucible (1914 film)|The Crucible]]'' (1914), ''[[The Weakness of Strength]]'' (1916), ''Madame Cubist'' (1916), ''The Best Man'' (1917), ''[[Carnival (1921 film)|Carnival]]'' (1921) and ''[[The Man from Home (1922 film)|The Man from Home]]'' (1922).<ref name=dnb/><ref name=BFI>[https://web.archive.org/web/20120711192714/http://explore.bfi.org.uk/4ce2ba95c6003 "Clifford Grey"], British Film Institute, accessed 2 November 2015</ref>
===1920s – Broadway and Hollywood===
In 1920 Grey was invited to New York by Kern to renew their collaboration, writing [[Florenz Ziegfeld]]'s ''[[Sally (musical)|Sally]]''.<ref name=oxford/> Grey remained in the US for most of the decade, with occasional sorties back to London for ''[[Phi-Phi]]'' with [[Henri Christiné]] (1922), ''The Smith Family'' with Ayer (1922), and ''The Rainbow'' with [[George Gershwin]] (1923). For Broadway, he provided a regular stream of lyrics – and some libretti – for musical comedies and revues. His collaborators included [[Sigmund Romberg]] and [[Melville Gideon]] on some of the less-remembered shows, [[Ivan Caryll]] and [[Guy Bolton]] on ''[[The Hotel Mouse (musical)|The Hotel Mouse]]'' (1922),<ref>''The New York Times'', 14 March
The introduction of talking pictures attracted Grey to [[Hollywood, Los Angeles|Hollywood]]. He collaborated with [[Victor Schertzinger]] on the 1929 [[Maurice Chevalier]] and [[Jeanette MacDonald]] film, ''[[The Love Parade]]'', and with [[Oscar Straus (composer)|Oscar Straus]] on ''The Smiling Lieutenant'' (1931), and contributed to films with a range of stars from [[Ramon Novarro]] to [[Lawrence Tibbett]] to [[Marion Davies]].<ref name=oxford/> His songs and lyrics from shows were used in many films, and he wrote screenplays and lyrics for fourteen new Hollywood films between 1929 and 1931, including ''[[The Vagabond Lover]]'' (1929), ''[[In Gay Madrid]]'' (1930) and ''[[The Smiling Lieutenant]]'' (1931).<ref name=dnb/> After his death Grey's songs continued to be used in films and television productions. His best known song, "If You Were the Only Girl (in the World)", appeared in such films as ''[[Lilacs in the Spring]]'' (1954), ''[[The Bridge on the River Kwai]]'' (1957) and ''[[The Cat's Meow]]'' (2001), and some films, such as ''[[Hit the Deck (1955 film)|Hit the Deck]]'' (1955), were adaptations of his shows. In 1929, he returned temporarily to London, where he collaborated with [[Vivian Ellis]] on the musical ''[[Mr Cinders]]'', which had a long West End run and featured one of Grey's best-remembered songs, "[[Spread a Little Happiness]]". {{refn|"Spread a Little Happiness" was revived by [[Sting (musician)|Sting]] in 1982, when it reached the [[UK Singles Chart|British Top 20]].<ref>Barker, Dennis. [https://search.proquest.com/docview/186372709 "The melody lingers on for a song-writer of the 1920s"], ''The Guardian'', 1 September 1982, p. 2 {{subscription required}}</ref>|group= n}}
===West End, films and last years===▼
===Olympian bobsleigher myth===▼
Returning to England in 1932, although apparently spending time in California,<ref name=Guardian/> Grey concentrated thereafter on the West End stage and British films. His screenplay for ''[[Rome Express]]'' (1932), a spy story, was "extremely popular in its day and virtually created a subgenre".<ref name=dnb/> He wrote more than twenty screenplays for British films, usually for the popular comedians of the day, but also including ''[[My Song Goes Round the World]]'' (1934), ''[[Mimi (1935 film)|Mimi]]'' (1935), an adaptation of ''[[La Bohème]]'', for [[Gertrude Lawrence]] and [[Douglas Fairbanks Jr.]] and ''[[Yes, Madam?]]'' (1940).<ref name=dnb/>▼
[[File:Grave of Clifford Grey in Ipswich Cemetery, Oct 2019.jpg|thumb|alt=Grey's grave with a new horizontal gravestone added in 2005 |Inscription on the stone laid on Grey's grave in 2005 including the erroneously attributed Olympic gold medals]]▼
After an article written in 1979 by an American journalist, Tim Clark, in ''[[Yankee Magazine]]'', it was believed for more than three decades that Grey had competed, secretly, for the US Olympic bobsleigh team in 1928 and 1932 under the name [[Clifford Gray (athlete)|Clifford "Tippy" (or "Tippi") Gray]]. Many news sources and biographers accepted this idea, based on circumstantial evidence that Clark had found. The evidence also persuaded Grey's daughters that their late father was not only the peripatetic writer that they remembered, but also a secret world-class sportsman who had been too modest to boast of his Olympic success.<ref name=Guardian/> The press thereafter widely reported that Grey the librettist had also won a gold medal in the five-man bobsleigh race at the [[1928 Winter Olympics]] in [[St. Moritz]], another at the following [[1932 Winter Olympics|Winter Olympics]] in [[Lake Placid, New York]], this time in the four-man event, and a bronze medal in the four-man race at the [[FIBT World Championships 1937|1937 FIBT World Championships]] in St. Moritz.<ref>Stewart, Graham. [http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:LTIB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=10FB764482001D90&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA "With a song – and a bobsleigh – in his heart"], ''[[The Times]]'', 11 February 2006</ref> In the ''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]'' the historian James Ross Moore concluded that during Grey's New York years:▼
Throughout the decade Grey had shows running in the West End, written in collaboration with previous collaborators and new ones including [[Oscar Levant]], [[Johnny Green]] and [[Noel Gay]].<ref name=dnb/><ref name=oxford/> Grey wrote more than 3,000 songs.<ref>Daniels, Robert L. (31 July 2006). "Jazz in July – Twelve Hands, Two Pianos, One Night", ''Daily Variety'' (New York, N.Y., Reed Business Information) 31 July 2006, pp. 7–8</ref>▼
{{quote|Grey made many theatrical and sporting friends. Much later, the secret life of this quiet, retiring, and serious-looking man, so supposedly sedentary and shy behind his horn-rimmed glasses, was revealed. With considerable skill, Grey had invented an American persona, Tippi Gray, and it was under this name that he joined three bobsleighing friends and won gold medals in both the 1928 and the 1932 winter Olympic games.<ref name=dnb/>|}}▼
When the [[Second World War]] began, Grey joined the [[Entertainments National Service Association]] (ENSA), which took shows round the country and overseas to provide relief for serving members of the armed forces. In 1941 he was presenting a concert party in [[Ipswich]], [[Suffolk]], when the town was heavily bombed. Grey died two days later, aged 54, as a result of a heart attack, brought on by the bombing, and exacerbated by [[asthma]]. He is buried in [[Old Ipswich Cemetery|Ipswich Old Cemetery]]
There were a few who did not accept that "Tippi" Gray was the same person as Clifford Grey the writer. The Olympic historian [[David Wallechinsky]] was one, and John Cross, a researcher from [[Bowdoin College]], was another.<ref name=Guardian/><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200417062137/https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/gr/cliff-gray-1.html "Clifford Barton 'Cliff' Gray"], SR/Olympics, Sports Reference LLC, accessed 2 November 2012</ref> Finally, around 2013, Andy Bull, a sportswriter for ''[[The Guardian]]'', was writing a book about the 1932 gold medal-winning bobsleigh team that was published in 2015 under the title ''Speed Kings''.<ref>Bull, Andy. ''Speed Kings'', Bantam Press (2015) {{ISBN|0593073762}}</ref> Although Bull had earlier accepted the story, as he looked closer, he became suspicious. He found an interview with "Tippy" Gray from 1948 in the ''[[Sarasota Herald-Tribune]]'', seven years after Grey's death.<ref>''Sarasota Herald-Tribune'', 9 March 1948, p. 11</ref> "Tippy" Gray, the Olympic champion, died in April 1968 in San Diego, California.<ref name=Guardian/> Bull wrote:▼
▲===Olympian bobsleigher myth===
{{quote|There are so many odd coincidences in the lives of the two men, it's easy to see now how their tales became tangled. ... [T]here was the physical resemblance, close enough for the two of them to be confused with each other in the grainy old black-and-white photos. Then ... "Tippy" Gray was a song-writer too. He had a short career in the movies, but killed his career when he was arrested in possession of an opium pipe and a pistol. After that, he moved to Paris and started writing jazz tunes for the revue at the Moulin Rouge.<ref name=Guardian/>|}}▼
▲[[File:Grave of Clifford Grey in Ipswich Cemetery, Oct 2019.jpg|thumb|alt=Grey's grave with a new horizontal gravestone added in 2005 |Inscription on the stone laid on Grey's grave in [[Old Ipswich Cemetery]] in 2005 including the erroneously attributed Olympic gold medals]]
▲After an article written in 1979 by an American journalist, Tim Clark, in ''[[Yankee Magazine]]'', it was believed for more than three decades that Grey had competed, secretly, for the US Olympic bobsleigh team in 1928 and 1932 under the name [[Clifford Gray (athlete)|Clifford "Tippy" (or "Tippi") Gray]]. Many news sources and biographers accepted this idea, based on circumstantial evidence that Clark had found. The evidence also persuaded Grey's daughters that their late father was not only the peripatetic writer that they remembered, but also a secret world-class sportsman who had been too modest to boast of his Olympic success.<ref name=Guardian/> The press thereafter widely reported that Grey the librettist had also won a gold medal in the five-man bobsleigh race at the [[1928 Winter Olympics]] in [[St. Moritz]], another at the following [[1932 Winter Olympics|Winter Olympics]] in [[Lake Placid, New York]], this time in the four-man event, and a bronze medal in the four-man race at the [[FIBT World Championships 1937|1937 FIBT World Championships]] in St. Moritz.<ref>Stewart, Graham. [http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.newsbank.com:UKNB:LTIB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=10FB764482001D90&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated5&req_dat=102CDD40F14C6BDA "With a song – and a bobsleigh – in his heart"], ''[[The Times]]'', 11 February 2006</ref> In the ''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]'' the historian James Ross Moore concluded that during Grey's New York years:
▲{{
▲===West End, films and last years===
▲Returning to England in 1932, although apparently spending time in California,<ref name=Guardian/> Grey concentrated thereafter on the West End stage and British films. His screenplay for ''[[Rome Express]]'' (1932), a spy story, was "extremely popular in its day and virtually created a subgenre".<ref name=dnb/> He wrote more than twenty screenplays for British films, usually for the popular comedians of the day, but also including ''[[My Song Goes Round the World]]'' (1934), ''[[Mimi (1935 film)|Mimi]]'' (1935), an adaptation of ''[[La Bohème]]'', for [[Gertrude Lawrence]] and [[Douglas Fairbanks Jr.]] and ''[[Yes, Madam?]]'' (1940).<ref name=dnb/>
▲There were a few who did not accept that "Tippi" Gray was the same person as Clifford Grey the writer. The Olympic historian [[David Wallechinsky]] was one, and John Cross, a researcher from [[Bowdoin College]], was another.<ref name=Guardian/><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20200417062137/https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/athletes/gr/cliff-gray-1.html "Clifford Barton 'Cliff' Gray"], SR/Olympics, Sports Reference LLC, accessed 2 November 2012</ref> Finally, around 2013, Andy Bull, a sportswriter for ''[[The Guardian]]'', was writing a book about the 1932 gold medal-winning bobsleigh team that was published in 2015 under the title ''Speed Kings''.<ref>Bull, Andy. ''Speed Kings'', Bantam Press (2015) {{ISBN|0593073762}}</ref> Although Bull had earlier accepted the story, as he looked closer, he became suspicious. He found an interview with "Tippy" Gray from 1948 in the ''[[Sarasota Herald-Tribune]]'', seven years after Grey's death.<ref>''Sarasota Herald-Tribune'', 9 March 1948, p. 11</ref> "Tippy" Gray, the Olympic champion, died in April 1968 in San Diego, California.<ref name=Guardian/> Bull wrote:
▲Throughout the decade Grey had shows running in the West End, written in collaboration with previous collaborators and new ones including [[Oscar Levant]], [[Johnny Green]] and [[Noel Gay]].<ref name=dnb/><ref name=oxford/> Grey wrote more than 3,000 songs.<ref>Daniels, Robert L. (31 July 2006). "Jazz in July – Twelve Hands, Two Pianos, One Night", ''Daily Variety'' (New York, N.Y., Reed Business Information) 31 July 2006, pp. 7–8</ref>
▲{{
▲When the [[Second World War]] began, Grey joined the [[Entertainments National Service Association]] (ENSA), which took shows round the country and overseas to provide relief for serving members of the armed forces. In 1941 he was presenting a concert party in [[Ipswich]], [[Suffolk]], when the town was heavily bombed. Grey died two days later, aged 54, as a result of a heart attack, brought on by the bombing, and exacerbated by [[asthma]]. He is buried in [[Ipswich]] cemetery.<ref name=dnb/><ref>Wallenchinsky, pp. 559–60</ref><ref>[https://www.nytimes.com/1941/09/27/archives/clifford-grey-54-english-lyricist-wrote-words-for-hit-the-deck-and.html "Clifford Grey, 54, English Lyricist; Wrote Words for ''Hit the Deck'' and ''The Three Musketeers'' Tunes – Dies in Ipswich"], ''The New York Times'', 27 September 1941, p. 17</ref>
==Films==
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*1916 – ''[[The Weakness of Strength]]'' – Richard Grant
*1916 – ''Madame Cubist''
*1916
*1916 – ''The Heart of a Hero'' – Tom Adams
*1916 – ''[[A Coney Island Princess]]'' – Tony Graves
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*1917 – ''The Best Man''
*1919 – ''The Game's Up'' – Ted Latham
*1920 – ''[[The Cost (1920 film)|The Cost]]'' – William Fanshaw Jr
*1921 – ''[[Carnival (1921 film)|Carnival]]'' – Lelio, Simonetta's brother
*1921 – ''[[Dangerous Lies (1921 film)|Dangerous Lies]]'' – Franklin Bond
*1922 – ''[[The Man from Home (1922 film)|The Man from Home]]'' – Secretary to
*1929 – ''[[Devil-May-Care]]'' – Songs
*1929 – ''[[The Love Parade]]'' – Lyrics
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===References===
{{Reflist
===Sources===
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[[Category:20th-century English male actors]]
[[Category:English film score composers]]
[[Category:English lyricists]]
[[Category:English male film actors]]
[[Category:English male silent film actors]]
[[Category:English male screenwriters]]
[[Category:English male songwriters]]
▲[[Category:Male film score composers]]
[[Category:People educated at King Edward VI Camp Hill School for Boys]]
[[Category:
[[Category:
[[Category:20th-century
[[Category:20th-century English male writers]]
[[Category:Broadway composers and lyricists]]
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