George M. Cohan

An early 20th century Broadway composer/lyricist, producer, playwright, and epitomic song-and-dance man with a long history on the vaudeville stages, George M. Cohan is best remembered for rousing standards like "Give My Regards to Broadway," "The Yankee Doodle Boy," "You're a Grand Old Flag," and the World War I anthem "Over There." The former two songs both originally appeared in his 1904 Broadway musical Little Johnny Jones, in which the composer also starred. Published in 1917 at the height of the First World War, "Over There," with its assurances that "the Yanks are coming," rose in popularity through recordings by Billy Murray, Nora Bayes, Enrico Caruso, and others, and saw a resurgence during World War II. James Cagney won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Cohan in the 1942 biopic Yankee Doodle Dandy, which opened in theaters sixth months before Cohan's death in November of that year.