"The Way You Look Tonight" is a song featured in the film Swing Time, originally performed by Fred Astaire. It won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 1936. The song was written by Jerome Kern with lyrics by Dorothy Fields. Fields later remarked, "The first time Jerry played that melody for me I went out and started to cry. The release absolutely killed me. I couldn't stop, it was so beautiful."[1]
The song was sung by John "Lucky" Garnett (played by Fred Astaire) while sitting at the piano. Penelope "Penny" Carroll (played by Ginger Rogers) was busy washing her hair in an adjacent room, and feeling anything but beautiful at the time.
Billie Holiday also recorded this song in 1936; her version can be found on several collections including The Quintessential Billie Holiday, Vol.2. This song was also popularly performed by Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald, Michael Bublé, Joey McIntyre, Rod Stewart, Andy Williams, Ray Quinn, Kris Allen, Steve Tyrell, James Darren, Harry Connick, Jr., and as a duet between Bing Crosby and his wife Dixie Lee. The song was performed by The Lettermen and became their first hit in 1961 (Billboard #13 pop, #3 easy listening and #36 UK Singles). It has also been covered by Chad & Jeremy, Bryan Ferry and Maroon 5. The Lettermen's and Chad & Jeremy's versions were slowed-down, crooning versions, rather than the original dance tempo number as in the film the song was written for. The Lettermen's version is, in fact, an MOR (middle-of-the-road) modification of a doo-wop/R&B version of the late 1950s version by the Jaguars. Olivia Newton-John covered the song on her 1989 lullaby album, Warm and Tender.
Jazz pianist Art Tatum has an instrumental recording in the collection The Complete Pablo Solo Masterpieces. Saxophonist Johnny Griffin covered this song in the hard bop jazz style on his 1957 A Blowing Session recording. Pianist Bradley Joseph performs his arrangement of "The Way You Look Tonight" on his 2006 album, Piano Love Songs.
In the 1942 film Once Upon a Honeymoon, Cary Grant says to Ginger Rogers that he always wants to remember "you just the way you look tonight — er, today", a reference to Rogers' appearance in the film in which the song was first heard. "The Way You Look Tonight" is referenced in Harold Pinter's 1971 play Old Times, in which two characters recite some of the lines. Greater use of "The Way You Look Tonight" is made in Brian Friel's 1979 play Faith Healer, which quotes and makes repeated references to the song. The playing of the Fred Astaire original is the beginning of Teddy's monologue in act two. The song itself is featured in movies including Chinatown, Hannah and Her Sisters, Father of the Bride (1991), My Best Friend's Wedding, and the Kenneth Branagh films Peter's Friends and Love's Labour's Lost (2000). The James Darren cover forms the background music for the "Seven-year Montage" in the final episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "What You Leave Behind". It is also sung by Allison Munn in the season finale of the WB sitcom What I Like About You. American Idol Season 8 winner Kris Allen sang the song during Rat Pack Standards week.
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