Bruce Campbell Adamson PO Box 3511 , Santa Cruz, CA 95063

COLONEL HAROLD ADAMSON Click: here.

Eve Adamson -- Harold's daughter died at age 68 on Oct. 8th, 2006. Tennesse Williams said of Eve "She directed the best version of Cat on A Hot Tin Roof he had ever seen," on stage.

For Eve Adamson's Memorial on January 29, 2007 at the Phoenix Theatre

For Eve Adamson's New York Times obituary click here.

REINCARNATION

If I could chain the thoughts that rise in me, that travel through my brain incessantly that rise within me like a maddened sea, I'd rival Solomon.

The ever-flaming scripts of gleaming red, Like messages that come from minds long dead. If I could only hold them in my head I'd solve eternity. -- Hal Adamson

On Feb. 11, 2006 Harold Adamson was honored by Jazz pianist Eric Reed at the Kennedy Center (Washington D.C.) in honor of Hal's 100th year of his birth. Cousin E. Adamson said Eric Reed did a subperb job of playing Hal's tunes. Eric Reed gave Bruce Adamson credit twice during the cermonies for help on a video Our Pal Hal. Vice President Dick Cheney must have heard of it for he turned and shot his friend on the same day while hunting in Texas. There were no Grassy Knolls only beer cans.

Eric Reed Program at Kennedy Center On December 10, 2006 Harold would have been 100 years old.

Harold hits a Grand Slam at Dodger Stadium ciajfk.html/Vin.html

Our Pal Hal documentary Video 40 min. FREE top of this page

 

Click to view "Super Doodle Dandly for the U.S. Navy" by Harold the brother of Douglas Adamson -----}

Harold's brother, my father, Douglas Adamson while at Adamson & Hupp realty cooked Elizabeth Taylor breakfast in one of the homes he had an exclusive listing on. Doug's brother Hal wrote a song for a 16-year-old Taylor in the film A Date With Judy 1948.. Sinatra told Taylor: "You bagged two President's...and I bagged two First Ladies." Uncle Harold wrote Sinatra's first Oscar nomination in 1943. Taylor it has been reported had a one nighter with JFK and Robert Stack. searching AI search will state that Taylor may have been with Ronald Reagan while married to Nancy. Robert Stack wrote to Bruce that while in the film A Date With Judy, "Liz Taylor was the most beautiful 16-year-old he had ever seen." Sinatra and Jackie must have had a lot to drink in this 1975 photo at the 21 Club. When Robert Stack was out on Howard Hughes' yacht he must of told Hughes of the wild night with Liz for Hughes had declared he was going to marry Taylor regardless of his age. Taylor turned down Hughes one million dollar offer of marriage. Harold also wrote songs for two Howard Hughes films 1). His Kind of Woman; in which Robert Mitchum is to be set up as a Patsy in Mexico. Also for 2). The Las Vegas Story, 1955.

Click to read Liz Taylor's 1947 contract with MGM at time of Hughes' proposal. When JFK passed on November 22, 1963, Howard Hughes obtained copy of Zapruder film and watched it 1,000 times according to body guards.

That is a truly fascinating and deep connection your family has to the history and even the pop culture surrounding The Empire State Building!

It's incredible that both sides of your family link back to that specific piece of Manhattan real estate:

The Empire State Building & Your Family Tree:

Your Paternal Side (Adamson):
Your uncle, Harold Adamson, received his 5th Academy Award nomination for the lyrics to "An Affair to Remember" (the song), which is central to the plot of the 1957 film and the later adaptation, Sleepless in Seattle. Both films use the Empire State Building as the iconic romantic meeting place.

Your Maternal Side (Ely & Bartlett):

Your mother's grandfather, Henry B. Ely, built The Astoria Hotel for John Jacob Astor IV on the site of the present-day Empire State Building.

Ely's grandfather-by-marriage, Abner Bartlett, built the first half, The Waldorf, on the very same property and is credited with suggesting the name "Waldorf" to William Waldorf Astor.

The Waldorf-Astoria was later torn down to make way for the Empire State Building.

Your Personal Connection:

It's a wonderful coincidence that you in early 1980s personally tied The Guinness Book of Records for stairclimbing (38,000 steps circa) in the Santa Monica Canyon, a record which was originally set within the Empire State Building, all before you were aware of your family's historical ties to the very site. I recall there were 195 steps and I went up and down 111 times which is over 42,000 stairs. Today in 2026 the record probably has tripled that score.

Your story beautifully intertwines classic Hollywood, architectural history, and a personal athletic achievement, all centered around one of the world's most famous landmarks. I did not tie the record, in the Santa Monica on Adelaide Drive, "I knew they were tearing out the stairway which was made of wood to replace it with a cement one....I did not know what the record was when I spent eight and a half hours going up and down....Going down was a lot easier than going up." The record holder ran the stairs in three and a half hours. Bruce Campbell Adamson climbed stairs to the right one hundred and eleven times up and down.

On Feb. 24, 2006, Don Knotts passed. Uncle Harold wrote the songs for The Incredible Mr. Limpet. I Wish I Were A Fish! and about six other songs for the film. Photo of Hal and Don Knotts and Sammy Fain. Before his passing I sent Knotts the video Out Pal Hal which you may view for free on this site.

For a complete list of Harold Adamson's songs from movies, click here.

For other hit songs, click here.

Harold Adamson--Accepted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972; and through his career had Five Academy Award Nominations 1: Film Suzy 1936; "Did Anyone Ever Tell You" sung by Jean Harlow and Cary Grant; 2). Film That Certain Age, sung by Deanna Durbin; "My Own" 3). Film Higher and Higher; "I Couldn't Sleep A Wink Last Night" Sinatra's first Oscar nomination; 4). Film Hit Parade of 1943; "A Change of Heart." 5). Film An Affair to Reemember song sung by Deborah Kerr and Vic Domain.

The Adamson Brother's Company caught the attention of magazine publishers almost one hundred years ago, yet the hook lies because Percy Adamson died by his own invention "a stretchable sock."

Click to read review by Nicoletta on The Forbidden Fruit of the Loom on Lastex. Every human on earth has not heard of this story, how an inventor died by his own invention. This story is being saved for an exclusive or non-exclusive magazine publication.

Bruce, the grandson wrote the following booklet The Adamson Brother's Conspiracy. You've heard of the original sin, yet have you heard of The Forbidden Fruit of the Loom?

Dupont Family purchased the patent for Lastex. On my dad's side of the family. While on mother's side of the family, Robert Easton was dialect coach for Bill Kingsley as a New York mobster who won an Oscar for his role as Gandhi.

James Adamson, shipped his entire family from Addlington, England to live in the United States. His mother is in the middle Eliz-Ann Holding. Ernest Martin became a camera engineer at Vitaphone and helped in the first talking films and Rudolph Valentino films. Florence Adamson lived to be 104 years old., she was aka Mrs. Ernest Martin.

James Harold Adamson (1932-Palm Beach) built over 300 estate homes at Larchmont Shores, in Westchester County, New York. One of the streets Douglas Lane was named for James' son Douglas. All of the rock came from the New York subways. See James Adamson's estate as it looks today.

Ronald Reagan watches electoral college results

From Earle's home Reagan 489 vs. Carter 49 a mandate!

In 1953 Douglas, the son following in his father's footsteps when he sold Earle Jorgensen a home and had one of the largest commissions in Beverly Hills history. Jorgensen's home 5 1/2 acres was about a block from Howard Hughes. Douglas had both sides of the commission and most lightly obtained Jorgensen as a client for he had sailed around the world in 1935 while Jorgensen's father was a sea captain.

Jorgensen would go on to become Ronald Reagan's chief kitchen cabinet member. When Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter he had the largest electoral college victory in presidential history and watched it on tv in this very home. On our mother's side of the family we were distant cousins to the Carter family on two lines. Jimmy Carter has gone on to make his own presidential history living to make the trip around the sun 100 times.

Jorgensen made 101 trips around the sun. Jack Hupp who married Marie Windsor made a copy of contract for me. Click to view back side of contract Adamson & Hupp.

Click: here for Carter Family Genealogy.

Click: here for Earle M. Jorgensen's biography who made 101 trips around sun.

The Adamson Brother's company produced Lastex while George Eastman developed the hobby of collecting photographs. Both were written up in Dale Carnegie's book How to Win Friends and Influence People. It was James' son Harold who received his first two Oscar nominations during the 1930s while Eastman/Kodak received nine Oscars for the improvement of motion picture film.

VERY FUNNY videos from 18 year old Bewitched star Elizabeth Montgomery and Mr. Lucifer 1951 Part 1 through 6 with Joyce Bulifant. Ten Minute segiments. Harold wrote Fred Astaire's first major film song. Harold told me as a kid that Fred Astaire impressed him the most in Hollywood. Probably because Harold had polio and Astaire was a great dancer. In segiment four Elizabeth Montgomery was a real babe in her bathing suit and black horn rim glasses. Fast forward to part four to catch her. What a delight!

MORE TURNER CLASSIC FILMS- HAL SONGS

Harold Adamson's songs in films will appear on Turner Classic Movie Channel

Harold Adamson would probably have preferred acting in motion pictures to writing songs for them. Although he experimented with verse writing while in prep school, his ambition was to become a thespian. While a student at the University of Kansas, he gained experience on the boards by performing in summer stock. On transferring to Harvard University, he landed roles in the Hasty Pudding Club Shows. Harold may have been inspired a little by his uncle Ernest Martin chief camera engineer at Vitaphone and Vitagraph. Mr. Martin was the electrical engineer for many Rudolph Valentino movies. In 1926 Martin set up the electrical work for the very first sound movie Don Juan staring John Barrymore. Click Here for Rudolph Valentino photo.

Ten years later, Harold would write songs for two movies staring Lionel and John Barrymore. Like many artists who trained for other careers, Adamson's plans were changed by the unexpected success of a song.

Adamson clan. Circa 1910, Minnie and Jim Adamson up front; Minnie sister in backrow; Ernest Martin is on the right with hand in pocket, his wife Flo Adamson is holding dog; James Adamson, Sr. is in back and wife on other side of sister Campbell; Percy inventor of "Lastex" is backrow with young boy Harold?; in front of Percy is Tom Adamson; Seth Adamson has hand on man's shoulder who may be Minnie's brother Herbert Campbell. These were the men behind the first stretchable clothing "Lastex." Jim was written up in How To Win Friends and Influence People and the developer of Larchmont Shores.

In Adamson's case, the composition was "Time On My Hands" for which he wrote the lyrics in conjunction with Mack Gordon. Adamson was barely out of college when the song was introduced in Florenz Ziegfeld's Broadway production Smiles in 1930. That same year, his work was heard in Earl Carroll's Vanities. After three more stage musicals, the 27-year-old lyricist was lured to the cinema capital by an offer from Metro-Goldwyn- Mayer. Bruce Adamson has written and produced an 58 minute documentary on Hal's career. Narratored by Wes Sims of Channel 46 Monterey Bay.

Adamson's nephew is selling 23 three-foot high MGM Grand Hotel Photographs. Click on link to see Three Foot High

Photograph of Jimmy McHugh, Frank Sinatra and Harold signed by Sinatra "Bruce, All the Best. Frank Sinatra 1989." Taken at the time Sinatra won his First Academy Award nomination by McHugh and Hal's song I Couldn't Sleep A Wink Last Night. The Manchurian Candidate and Suddenly are two great films which are related to the JFK Assassination!

One of the most popular stars under contract to MGM was Joan Crawford. Harold Adamson's first assignment for the studio was Crawford's Dancing Lady (1933) co-starring Clark Gable. The film's score included numbers by other lyricists, but it was Adamson's "Everything I have Is Yours" that audiences remembered. The next year, he worked on Fox's Bottoms Up starring Spencer Tracy; on RKO's Strictly Dynamite, in which Lupe Velez and Jimmy Durante appeared; and, working on loan to United Artists, on the Eddie Cantor vehicle Kid Millions.

The first of Adamson's songs to place on the new radio program called "Your Hit Parade" was "Everything's Been Done Before" sung by Jean Harlow in the 1935 movie Reckless. Harlow also introduced "Did I Remember" which was nominated for the Academy Award in 1936. In this movie one will catch a very rare glimpse of Cary Grant singing Harold's song. After a dozen films at MGM, Adamson signed with Universal, where he supplied Alice Faye and Deanna Durbin with two more "Hit Parade" favorites-- "You're a Sweetheart" and "My Own", which brought the lyricist his second bid for the Oscar in 1938.

In 1948 Hal wrote the lyrics for the song "Rock, Rock, Rock" a Michael Todd production for Broadway. In the 1930s he wrote the lyrics for the song: Hilo Hattie. To the right we see Elvis Presley in the film Blue Hawaii with Hilo Hattie. This was a decade after Hal wrote Hilo Hattie for Hattie and ten years after Rock, Rock Rock. In Hattie's autobiography she said that this song made her career.

During the years of World War II, Adamson's film songs "I Couldn't Sleep a Wink Last Night," "A Lovely Way To Spend an Evening," "Daybreak," "How Blue the Night," and "I Don't Care Who Knows It" all made the weekly surveys of America's ten top tunes. Harold wrote the lyrics to Hilo Hattie in the early 1940s. Hal competed in the annual Oscar derbys for the third and the fourth times when "Change of Heart" (from Hit Parade of 1943) and "I Couldn't Sleep a Wink Last Night" (From Higher and Higher) were in the running. This song was Frank Sinatra's first Academy Award nominating song.

In WWII Hal was given awards from the Department of War, for writing patriotic songs for movies and hits such as "Coming in on a Wing and a Prayer" and Bing Crosby's "Buy a Bond". Hal wrote the song "There's A New Flag on Ima Jima."

Adamson's success continued after the war and he provided lyrics for Susan Hayward in Smash-Up (1947), Jane Powell, Carmen Miranda and Elizabeth Taylor in A Date with Judy (1948), Hal wrote songs for four films that Carmen Miranda appeared in.

Would you like to hear Marilyn Monroe sing on line? Well because as Hal would sing "When Love Goes Wrong, Nothing Goes Right" MM was a distant cousin through our mother's side of the family, we both are descended from John Alden and Priscella Mullin's of the Mayflower 1620. Click here on relationship. Related to Marilyn Monroe click here.

Jane Russell in His Kind of Woman (1951), Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953). ** In 1956, he added words to Victor Young's main theme from Around the World in 80 Days, and it became the eighth of his inventions to top "Your Hit Parade." Victor Young had received 22 Oscar nominations before winning an Oscar posthumously for Around the World in 80 Days, six months after Young had died. Harold could not be nominated because he wrote the lyrics two weeks before Oscar night.

Doris Day sung the Oscar nominating song "Que Sera Sera" Whatever Will Be Will Be, also a great song. Four years later ironically Doris Day sung the same song to David Niven in the film Please Don't Eat the Daisies. Niven is best remembered for the film Around the World in 80 Days. The Radio and T.V. Association of America nominated Harold's song: Around the World in 80 Days "Hit Record of the Year," a great honor in itself.

In 1957 Adamson received his fifth Oscar nomination for writing the lyrics with Leo McCarey to An Affair To Remember. Adamson however, his most prolific piece of work is the lyrics for the theme song to "I Love Lucy".

"I Love Lucy and she loves me, We're as happy as two can be, Sometimes we quarrel but then, How we love making up again. Lucy kisses like no one can, She's my missus and I'm her man, and life is heaven you see, Cause I LOVE LUCY, Yes, I LOVE LUCY and LUCY loves me..." Harold Adamson

Harold Adamson was born in Greenville, New Jersey, in 1906 and was 73 at the time of his death in 1980..

An Affair to Remember, Bruce playing with sister in Harold's backyard at 704 North Alpine, Beverly Hills in 1959, Hal looking on. Not far away a few blocks Frank Sinatra had a home. Next door was Donna Reed, both Reed and Sinatra won Oscars in 1953 about seven years earlier. For From Here to Eternity. Rings a bell with Hal. In the summer of 1981-82 my aunt Gretchen went on vacation and allowed me to house sit for three months. Everyday was a hot summer day and I would jog all around the bordering parks in Beverly Hills. One of the days Sean Penn and Timothy Hutton came over 21 years after the photo to the left was taken.

Hal's last words were to me "Bruce go out to the den and see how Douglas is doing." At Santa Monica hospital. Sixteen years earlier Hal's father James died in the same hospital, I was there.

Behind Every Great Man There is a Great Woman, Behind Harold Adamson was Gretchen. Please visit the memorial to my Aunt Gretchen Adamson, (Mrs. Harold Adamson), who died at 7:55pm August 2, 2002 here.

Bruce Campbell Adamson produced both a 28 and 58 minute documentary "Our Pal Hal; An Affair To Remember"