Herbert Fields was born in New York in 1897, into a family of Broadway legends. The son of legendary vaudevillian Lew Fields, Herbert and his siblings Dorothy and Joseph all made careers in theatre as librettists, writers, actors, and directors. After beginning his career as an actor, Herbert eventually found his calling as a librettist, and throughout the 1930s he wrote the books for many of the Rodgers and Hart and Cole Porter musicals.
With the rise of "talkies" in the late 1930s, Herbert turned his hand in part to screenwriting, and produced script and music for several lesser-known movies of the era. He also contributed to Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer's groundbreaking The Wizard of Oz, although due to the chaotic writing and revising process for that film, he and several other luminaries of the time went uncredited for their work. He and his younger sister Dorothy were regular collaborators, including on the pair's greatest success Annie Get Your Gun, which ran on Broadway for 1,147 performances. He and Dorothy also worked together on Redhead, for which Herbert was awarded the Tony for Best Musical in 1959.
Herbert died in New York in 1958. He - along with Dorothy - was inducted into the Theatre Hall of Fame in 1988.
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