Remembering musical theater historian Robert Kimball
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and Cooley. Robert Kimball, the musical historian who rediscovered and rescued music and manuscripts by George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and others, and who co-wrote important books about George and Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, and UB Blake, died last week. He was 86 years old. Kimball, who was born in New York City in 1939, fell in love with Broadway musicals and musical composers when he was taken as a child to see Ethel Merbyn star as Annie Oakley in Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun. Later in life, after publishing several books on popular songwriters, Kimball got a call from Irving Berlin himself, sparking a friendship that brought Kimball's life full circle.
Robert Kimball graduated from Yale in 1961. His undergraduate thesis was on Broadway musicals of the nineteen twenties, but when he returned to Yale, it was for law school from which he graduated in nineteen sixty seven. While a senior in law school, Kimball was asked to organize the collection donated to Yale by composer Cole Porter. Kimball did such a good job and enjoyed it so much that when he earned his law degree he didn't become a lawyer. Instead, for the next four years, he curated Yale's musical theatre collections and began writing books on the subject.
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