Gohman, Don

Don Gohman (1927 - ca. 1974) was a composer focused on composing music for musicals, ballets and popular songs.

Among his popular song successes were Never My Love, Every Woman and Once Before. In the mid-1950s he teamed with the lyricist Hal Hackady. Gohman and Hackady wrote songs for two films, Let's Rock and Senior Prom (both 1958), and started writing material for stage musicals. Several of their efforts, including Mrs. Who, O'Malley's Nuns and Step Right Up, were never produced. Work on the musical Ambassador, based on the Henry James novel The Ambassadors, began in 1960. It was in 1971, based on a book by Don Ettlinger and Anna Marie Barlow. The show opened in London to weak reviews and ran for 86 performances. It was reworked, with some songs dropped and others added, and opened in previews in New York on November 2, 1972, but again received negative reviews and closed after 19 performances. Though some sources report that Gohman committed suicide not long after the show closed, the Gohman Papers contain work on a musical, The Little Prince Who Cried, which dates from 1974.

Don Gohman (1927 – ca. 1974) grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, where he studied piano at Cincinnati Conservatory with Leo Paalz and composition with Carl W. Grimm. He also studied composition at Miami University before moving to New York in 1948, where he continued music and theatre studies at the Juilliard School and the American Theater Wing. His first project in New York was the music for the Boris Runanin ballet I Laughed At Spring (1952), performed by the Slavenska-Franklin Ballet Company, and he later wrote music for a CBS television series, Turnpike . However, Gohman’s main goals were to write musical comedies and pop songs. Among his popular song successes were Never My Love, Every Woman and Once Before .

In the mid-1950s he teamed with the lyricist Hal Hackady. Gohman and Hackady wrote songs for two films, Let’s Rock and Senior Prom (both 1958), and started writing material for stage musicals. Several of their efforts, including Mrs. Who, O’Malley’s Nuns and Step Right Up, were never produced. Work on the musical Ambassador, based on the Henry James novel The Ambassadors, began in 1960 after it was optioned by Jim Downey, Jr. (the original idea for creating a musical out of the novel was James Thurber’s). It was not produced until 1971, with a book by Don Ettlinger and Anna Marie Barlow, and starred Howard Keel, Danielle Darrieux and a young Andrea Marcovicci. The show opened in London to weak reviews and ran for 86 performances. It was reworked, with some songs dropped and others added, and opened in previews in New York on November 2, 1972, but again received negative reviews and closed after 19 performances. Gohman reportedly committed suicide not long after the show closed, but the Gohman Papers contain work on a musical, The Little Prince Who Cried, which dates from 1974.

Source: Filchia, Peter. “Be Thankful.” November 24, 2004, Theatermania.com (Accessed 26 Sept. 2007) http://www.theatermania.com/content/news.cfm?int_news_id=5373&showComments=recent