Rida Johnson Young (1869–1926)

Rida Johnson Young was born in Baltimore, Maryland. She was educated in the public schools and graduated from Wilson College in Pennsylvania. Despite opposition from her parents, she went to New York City with ambitions to become a playwright. First she worked an actress for four years with the Viola Allen and E.H. Sothern Broadway Companies, before taking a job with the music publisher Isidore Witmark. There for two years, she turned out songs on demand. She then resumed her acting career in the South, and married James Young, Jr., a fellow thespian, in 1898. Her first play, Lord Byron, was produced in 1900, and she had her first big success with its followup in 1906, Brown of Harvard. This was followed by the comic play The Boys of Company B (1907), which ran for two years on Broadway. The Lottery Man (1909) ran for 200 performances. As a librettist and lyricist, Young also teamed up with the greatest composers of her era, including Victor Herbert, Sigmund Romberg, and Rudolf Friml. She wrote the book and lyrics to the 1910 operetta Naughty Marietta, Herbert's greatest success and her best known work. This musical set new standards for Broadway comedy and has been produced many times, including a 1978 presentation at the New York City Opera at Lincoln Center. A film adaptation released in 1935 was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. Highlights from Young's catalog of 500 songs include "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life," "Mother Machree," "Tramp! Tramp! Tramp!" "Neath the Southern Moon," I’m Falling in Love With Someone," “Italian Street Song," The Road to Paradise," "Will You Remember" and "My Dream Girl." Many of her original plays and musicals were comic treatments of topics such as young love and college life. She died at age 51 in 1926.