Blane, Ralph

American composer-lyricist Ralph Uriah Hunskcer (professional name Ralph Blane) was born and died in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. He attended Northwestern University. He studied music in New York with Estell Liebling and began singing for radio in the 1930s. He and friend Hugh Martin started the Martins quartet; this friendship developed into a partnership that was to create many songs for stage and MGM musicals. They made their stage debut with “New Faces of 1936” and followed up the next year with “Hooray for What.” In 1941 they made their own musical, “Best Foot Forward.” Then they were off to Hollywood where they wrote three songs that have become classics for the 1944 film musical, “Meet Me in St. Louis”: “Boy Next Door,” “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” and “The Trolley Song.” For this they got their first Oscar nomination. A broadway musical adaptation of the film was staged in 1960 and a revival of the same in 1989. A second Oscar nomination followed in 1947 for the song “Pass That Peace Pipe” for the film version of “Good News,” for which they collaborated with Roger Edens. Over the next years they also collaborated with other song writers, including Harry Warren, Harold Arlen and Kay Thompson. In 1983 both Blane and Martin were inducted into the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame. In the 1990s, Blane returned for his retirement to Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, appearing once to sing “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” in the Walt Disney World’s 1991 Christmas Candlelight Processional.