Education
He began by writing special material for supper club artistes like Celeste Holm and Dwight Fiske and then graduated to writing "popular" songs with Alec Wilder for such stars as Harry Belafonte, Sarah Vaughan, and National King Cole.
He began by writing special material for supper club artistes like Celeste Holm and Dwight Fiske and then graduated to writing "popular" songs with Alec Wilder for such stars as Harry Belafonte, Sarah Vaughan, and National King Cole.
Barer began his career as a lyricist and songwriter in the late 1940s while working as a commercial artist/designer in New New York His most-heard song is the Mighty Mouse theme song. He was later hired by Golden Records, for whom he wrote over 100 songs.
In 1951, he met Dean Fuller and they began collaborating on songs for the musical theatre, beginning with the revue Walk Tall in 1954.
They also wrote special material for Bing Crosby and Sid Caesar. He had his greatest Broadway success came in 1959 with Once Upon a Mattress, for which he was lyricist and a book writer
Barer began his own cabaret act in the 1970s, playing in clubs in Los Angeles and New York, where he would often reinterpret the lyrics of his own songs. In 1972 he wrote 7 songs for Scarecrow in a Garden of Cucumbers a low-budget movie starring Holly Woodlawn.
Marshall died aged 75 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at his home, after living many years in Venice, California.
Though a prolific writer, Marshall was largely unknown except to aficionados of "lost" musicals. River Run
Louisiana Ronde (This Is Quite a Perfect Night)
Roller Coaster Blues
Intoxication
In a Little While
Shy
Normandy
Very Soft Shoes
Song of Love (I"m In Love With A Girl Named Fred)
Christmas long Ago
What"ll I Do With All the Love I Was Savin" for You? Warm Winter
On Such A Night As This
Walk Tall (1954)
New Faces of 1956 (1956)
Ziegfeld Follies (1957 starring Beatrice Lillie)
Once upon a Mattress, with music by Mary Rodgers (1959) a comical rendering of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy-tale "The Princess and the Pea"
Dancing on the Air (an adaptation of Shaw"s The Devil"s Disciple) with Dean Fuller
Around the World in Eighty Days with music by Michel Legrand
A Little Night Music (never produced).
