and conductor for Paramount Pictures and worked with such singers as Ethel Merman, Gertrude Lawrence and James Melton. He composed many of his hit standards during the 1930s, including Bing Crosby's first number one hit recording, "Out of Nowhere" (1931, co-authored with Edward Heyman), "Rain Rain Go Away" (1932), "I Cover the Waterfront", "You're Mine You", "I Wanna Be Loved" (all 1933), "Easy Come Easy Go" and "Repeal The Blues" (both 1934). He also composed the theme for Max Fleischer's Betty Boop cartoons in 1932, with Edward Heyman as lyricist. After 1933, Green had his own orchestra which he used to perform around the country. He also, until 1940, conducted orchestras for the Jack Benny and Philip Morris records and radio shows. Carnegie Hall and Astoria Studios Nathaniel Shilkret and Paul Whiteman commissioned Green to write larger works for orchestra, such as "Night Club (Six Impressions for Orchestra with Three Pianos)", introduced by Whiteman on January 25, 1933 at Carnegie Hall. Green was at piano "one," and Roy Bargy and Ramona played the other two pianos. During the early 1930s, Green also wrote music for numerous films at Paramount's Astoria Studios, conducted in East Coast theatres, and toured vaudeville as musical director for Buddy Rogers. During his two and a half years at Paramount Astoria, he was able to learn more about film scoring from veterans Adolph Deutsch and Frank Tours. London, radio, and recordings Green spent much of 1933 in London, where he contributed songs to both Mr. Whittington, a musical comedy for Jack Buchanan at the London Hippodrome, and Big Business, the first musical comedy ever written for BBC Radio. On Green's return to the U.S.A. early in 1934, William S. Paley, president of the Columbia Broadcasting System and an investor in New York's St. Regis Hotel, encouraged him to form what became known as Johnny Green, His Piano and Orchestra. (Green added, "My arm didn't need much twisting.") The orchestra, based for a time at the St. Regis, featured Green's piano and arrangements, whose harmony and mood were among the most sophisticated of the day. It made dance records for the Columbia and Brunswick companies, although in the Depression even the most popular records sold only in small numbers. In 1935, Green starred on CBS's Socony Sketchbook, sponsored by Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. He lured the young California singer Virginia Verrill to headline with him on the Friday