Buddy G. DeSylva

George Gard "Buddy" DeSylva grew up in Los Angeles and made his first fortune with a pen. As the front man of the songwriting team DeSylva, Brown and Henderson, he wrote some of the brightest standards of the 1920s — "The Best Things in Life Are Free," "Button Up Your Overcoat," "Sonny Boy," "Look for the Silver Lining" — and collaborated early with George Gershwin. Broadway shows and Al Jolson vehicles poured out under his name.

In the 1930s he turned to producing, first supervising a string of Shirley Temple pictures at Fox, then landing at Paramount, where in 1941 he became executive head of production. During the war years he ran one of Hollywood's major studios, championing the manic comedienne Betty Hutton, whom he helped make a star, and backing the young Preston Sturges through his run of classic comedies.

DeSylva's third career may be his most lasting. In 1942, with Johnny Mercer and businessman Glenn Wallichs, he put up the seed money to found Capitol Records — the first major label based on the West Coast, which would soon record Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra. DeSylva's cash and clout got it off the ground.

Ill health forced him to step back, and he died in 1950 at 55, a wealthy and many-sided man. Few figures moved so fluidly among songwriting, the studio executive suite, and the recording industry — and fewer left durable marks in all three.