Episode #1936
9/7 Arthur Francis and Ira Gershwin
Ira was the older brother but George became famous first. To avoid riding on George’s coattails, Ira wrote most of his earliest song lyrics using a pseudonym: Arthur from his third brother, Francis from his sister. And so, for a while, Tin Pan Alley and Broadway had a songwriter named Arthur Francis. When Ira began to write with George in the mid-twenties, he also began to use his own name.
