Doris Fisher(1915-2003)

Songwriter ("You Always Hurt the One You Love", "Tampico", "Put the Blame on Mame", "Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall"), composer, singer and author, educated at Juilliard. Her first song hit was in 1938 ("Tutti Frutti", with Slim Gaillard), and in 1940 "Whispering Grass", written with her father Fred Fisher, became an early hit for the Ink Spots.

She joined ASCAP in 1941, and her musical collaborators included Fred Fisher, Arthur Gershwin, and Allan Roberts. She sang with the Eddy Duchin orchestra in 1943, and made records with her own group "Penny Wise and Her Wise Guys". In 1944 alone her songs were recorded by Louis Prima ("Angelina [the Waitress at the Pizzeria]"), Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters ("Good, Good, Good"), Ella Fitzgerald and the Ink Spots ("Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall"), Ella Mae Morse and Harry James ("Invitation to the Blues"), Billie Holiday ("That Ole Devil Called Love"), and the Mills Brothers (and later, Spike Jones, "You Always Hurt the One You Love").

Coming to Hollywood under contract to Columbia with lyricist Allan Roberts in 1945, she wrote film music for only two years until retiring from show business after marrying real estate developer Charles Gershenson. She then became an authority on American furniture, architecture and design. In fact, it was she who helped furnish the White House during the Kennedy administration.

Her other popular-song compositions include "Amado Mio", "You Can't See the Sun When You're Crying", "Tired", "I Wish", "Either It's Love or It Isn't", "They Can't Convince Me", "Gee, It's Good to Hold You", "Fla-Ga-La-Pa" and "Courage Was the Fashion Then" (for the Detroit Bicentennial).