Ray Evans

With his songwriting partner Jay Livingston, Ray Evans has been responsible for some of the more memorable movie songs from the late 1940s to the early 60s. The duo first met at the University of Pennsylvania where they both were enrolled as undergraduates. During their holiday breaks, they worked in a band that played on cruise ships. After graduating, the pair settled in NYC where they held odd jobs while trying to place their songs. In 1941, the first Livingston-Evans song "G'bye Now" was incorporated in Olsen and Johnson's "Hellzapoppin'" and landed on "Your Hit Parade." Olsen and Johnson brought the young songwriters out to Hollywood with them in 1944 where Betty Hutton recorded an early song of the duo, "Stuff Like That There." Producers Releasing Corporation began to incorporate their songs, including "The Cat and the Canary" (used in 1945's "Why the Girls Leave Home") which earned Livingston and Evans their first Oscar nomination.