1. Jerome Kern
Jan. 27, 1885 – Nov. 11, 1945

2. Music Arguably the father modern American musical theater
Known for writing characters that were everyday people
Kern wrote Show Boat in It was the first truly modern American musical with a serious plot drawn from a literary source.
Storyline featured interracial marriage, wife desertion, alcoholism and gambling, and the most realistic characters ever seen in a musical up to then
“Show Boat” included the songs "Ol' Man River" and "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man."
Kern divided his time between Broadway and Hollywood in the '30s, after sound came into the movies