Michael Elder Rourke who assumed the pen name Herbert Reynolds in 1913, was an Irish-American lyricist

Lyricist

A lyricist is a songwriter who specializes in lyrics. A singer who writes the lyrics to songs is a singer-lyricist. This differentiates from a singer-composer, who composes the song's melody.-Collaboration:...

.

Reynolds wrote the lyrics to Jerome Kern

Jerome Kern

Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...

's first big hit, "They Didn't Believe Me

They Didn't Believe Me

"They Didn't Believe Me" is a song with music by Jerome Kern and lyrics by Herbert Reynolds.First introduced in the 1914 musical The Girl from Utah it was one of five numbers added to the show by Kern and Reynolds for its Broadway debut at the Knickerbocker Theatre on August 14, 1914...

", interpolated into the 1914 American version of The Girl from Utah

The Girl from Utah

The Girl from Utah is an Edwardian musical comedy in two acts with music by Paul Rubens, and Sidney Jones, a book by James T. Tanner, and lyrics by Adrian Ross, Percy Greenbank and Rubens. The story concerns an American girl who runs away to London to avoid becoming a wealthy Mormon's newest wife...

, produced by Charles Frohman

Charles Frohman

Charles Frohman was an American theatrical producer. Frohman was producing plays by 1889 and acquired his first Broadway theatre by 1892. He discovered and promoted many stars of the American theatre....

. The show had a successful run of 140 performances at the Knickerbocker Theatre

Knickerbocker Theatre (Broadway)

The Knickerbocker Theatre — previously known as Abbey's Theatre and Henry Abbey's Theatre — was a Broadway theatre located at 1396 Broadway in New York City. It operated from 1893 to 1930...

, opening on August 14, 1914. Frohman had hired the young Kern to write five new songs for the score together with Reynolds to strengthen what he felt was a weak first act. Julia Sanderson

Julia Sanderson

Julia Sanderson was an actress and singer. Her father, Albert Sackett, was also a Broadway star. She was born August 20, 1888, in Springfield, Massachusetts. She appeared in the Forepaugh Circus as a child and in her early teen years with her father. She then moved to Broadway, where she appeared...

 and Donald Brian

Donald Brian

Donald Brian was an actor, dancer and singer born St. John's, Newfoundland , at the age of eighteen was crowned "King of Broadway" by the New York Times in 1907. Brian is noted for helping President Theodore Roosevelt act more relaxed in public and teaching Frank Sinatra to dance and entertain U.S...

 starred in the production.

He shared the lyric writing with P. G. Wodehouse

P. G. Wodehouse

Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, KBE was an English humorist, whose body of work includes novels, short stories, plays, poems, song lyrics, and numerous pieces of journalism. He enjoyed enormous popular success during a career that lasted more than seventy years and his many writings continue to be...

 in Miss Springtime (1916), with additional music by Kern.

Reynolds went on to collaborate with Kern and several other lyricists in the Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 musical

Musical theatre

Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...

 Very Good Eddie

Very Good Eddie

Very Good Eddie is a musical with a book by Guy Bolton and Philip Bartholomae, music by Jerome Kern, and lyrics by Schuyler Green and Herbert Reynolds, with additional lyrics by Elsie Janis, Harry B. Smith and John E. Hazzard and additional music by Henry Kailimai. The story was based on the farce...

with a book by Guy Bolton

Guy Bolton

Guy Reginald Bolton was a British-American playwright and writer of musical comedies. Born in England and educated in France and the U.S., he trained as an architect but turned to writing. Bolton preferred working in collaboration with others, principally the English writers P. G...

 and Philip Bartholomae, and again in Rock-a-Bye Baby (1918).

External links

• Herbert Reynolds at IBDB Internet Broadway Database