Background
He was born and died in New New York Caesar, the son of Morris Keiser, a Romanian Jew, was born Isidor Keiser.
He was born and died in New New York Caesar, the son of Morris Keiser, a Romanian Jew, was born Isidor Keiser.
In 1972 he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He was 101 years old. The Caesar brothers spent their childhood and teen years in Yorkville, the same Manhattan neighborhood where the Marx Brothers were raised.
Caesar knew the Marx Brothers during his childhood.
He was educated at Chappaqua Mountain Institute in Chappaqua, New New York In his career Caesar collaborated with a wide variety of composers and songwriters, including Rudolf Friml, George Gershwin, Sigmund Romberg, Victor Herbert, Ted Koehler and Ray Henderson.
Two of his best known numbers, I Want to Be Happy and Tea for Two, were written with Vincent Youmans for the 1925 musical Number, Number, Nanette. Another of his biggest hits, Animal Crackers in My Soup, was popularized by Shirley Temple in her 1935 film "Curly Top." Just a Gigolo, his 1929 adaptation of an Austrian song, was a hit for Louis Prima in the 1950s and again for David Lee Roth in the 1980s.
In the late 1930s he and composer Gerald Marks wrote a famous series of children"s songs focusing on safety.
Caesar made hundreds of appearances in schools performing the "Sing a Song of Safety," "Sing a Song of Friendship" (a United Nations-inspired series focusing on world peace, racial tolerance and friendship) and "Songs of Health" collections. Caesar served on the songwriters" performance-rights organization American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers board of directors from 1930 to 1946 and again from 1949 to 1966.