Bock and Harnick

Bock and Harnick, songwriting team. Jerry [Jerrold Lewis] Bock (b. 1928) was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and began to compose songs for shows in high school and at the University of Wisconsin. After writing for Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca's television shows and for summer camp revues, Bock collaborated with lyricist Larry Holofcener on several songs for the Broadway revue Catch a Star (1955) and Sammy Davis Jr.'s vehicle, Mr. Wonderful (1956). Shortly afterwards he teamed up with lyricist Sheldon [Mayer] Harnick (b. 1924), a Chicago native who had written songs while studying at Northwestern and had seen some of his numbers performed in such revues as New Faces of 1952, Two's Company (1952), John Murray Anderson's Almanac (1953), and Shoestring Revue (1955). The twosome's first musical together was the short‐lived boxing musical The Body Beautiful (1958) but they triumphed with the Pulitzer Prize–winning Fiorello! (1959). This was followed by the period piece Tenderloin (1960), the operetta‐like She Loves Me (1963), and their most popular work, Fiddler on the Roof (1964). Their last two projects together were the triptych musical comedy The Apple Tree (1966) and the biographical The Rothschilds (1970). After the team split, Harnick wrote lyrics for Richard Rodgers's music for Rex (1976) and scored some musicals that were produced regionally. At their best, the Bock and Harnick scores caught the flavor of periods and places in which the musicals were set without ever becoming truly imitative of older styles. Bock's music contains strong melodicism while Harnick's lyrics offer a compassionate, yet often witty, understanding of human longings.