Editing Frank Loesser (section)

== Early years ==
Frank Henry Loesser was born to a Jewish family<ref>{{Cite web|last=Bloom|first=Nate|title=All those Holiday/Christmas Songs: So Many Jewish Songwriters!|publisher=[[Jewish World Review]]|date=December 22, 2014|url=http://jewishworldreview.com/1214/jewz_xmas.php3}}</ref> in New York City, the son of Henry Loesser, a [[pianist]],<ref name=pbs>[https://www.pbs.org/wnet/broadway/stars/loesser_f.html Frank Loesser biography] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120318163738/http://www.pbs.org/wnet/broadway/stars/loesser_f.html |date=March 18, 2012 }}, pbs.org, accessed December 5, 2008</ref> and Julia Ehrlich.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title = A Most Remarkable Fella: Frank Loesser and the Guys and Dolls in His Life|last = Loesser|first = Susan|publisher = Donald I Fine, Inc.|year = 1993|isbn = 1-55611-364-1|location = New York|pages = 1}}</ref><ref name="Garraty 1988 385">{{harvnb|Garraty|1988|p=385}}</ref> He grew up in a house on West 107th Street in Manhattan.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Loesser|first=Susan|title=A Most Remarkable Fella: Frank Loesser and the Guys and Dolls in his Life|publisher=ISBN|year=1993|location=United States|pages=4–7}}</ref>

His father had moved to America to avoid [[German Reich|German]] military service and work in his family's banking business. He married Bertha Ehrlich; their son, [[Arthur Loesser]], was born on August 26, 1894. Bertha's younger sister Julia arrived in America in 1898, marrying Henry in 1907 after Bertha died in childbirth. Grace, their first child, was born in December of that year. Their son Frank was born on June 29, 1910.<ref name=Lasser >{{Cite book|last=Lasser|first=Michael|title= "Francis Henry Loesser" American Song Lyricists, 1920-1960|publisher=Gale|year=2002|isbn=978-0-7876-6009-3}}</ref>

Loesser's parents, secular German Jews, prized high intellect and culture, and educated him musically in the vein of European composers.<ref name="Garraty 1988 385"/> But although Henry was a full-time piano teacher, he never taught his son. In a 1914 letter to Arthur, Henry wrote that the four-year-old Frank could play by ear "any tune he's heard and can spend an enormous amount of time at the piano."<ref>Loesser 1993, p. 8-10</ref> (Frank Loesser later collaborated with musical secretaries to ensure that his written scores reflected the music as he conceived it.)<ref>Loesser 1993, p. 154-156</ref>

Loesser disliked his father's refined taste in music and resisted by writing his own music and taking up the harmonica. He was expelled from [[Townsend Harris High School]], and from there went to City College of New York.<ref name="Lasser" /> He was expelled from the CCNY in 1925 after one year for failing every subject except English and gym.<ref name="Garraty 1988 385" />

After his father died suddenly on July 20, 1926, Loesser was forced to seek work to support his family.<ref name="Maiers 2009 1–3">{{harvnb|Maiers|2009|pp=1–3}}</ref> His jobs included restaurant reviewer, process server, classified ad salesman for the ''[[New York Herald Tribune]]'', political cartoonist for ''The Tuckahoe Record'', sketch writer for [[Keith-Albee-Orpheum|Keith Vaudeville Circuit]], knit-goods editor for ''[[Women's Wear Daily]]'', press representative for a small movie company, and city editor for a short-lived newspaper in New Rochelle, New York, titled ''New Rochelle News''.<ref name="Garraty 1988 385"/><ref name="Lasser"/>