Wikipedia:
Ralph Rainger (b. October 7, 1901 in New York City as Ralph Reichenthal; † October 24, 1942) was a U.S. musician, film composer and songwriter. He collaborated with Leo Robin.
Ralph Rainger published his first composition at the age of 22 which he wrote for a Broadway theater. He first began a legal education, and then concentrated entirely on writing songs. In 1926, he worked on the Broadway musical Queen High as a rehearsal pianist. He initially played in Broadway orchestras and as a duo with Edgar Fairchild in vaudeville shows. He eventually got a job in the revue The Little Show (1929), for which he wrote his first hit, "Moanin' Low," with lyrics by Howard Dietz. He wrote the piece for the singer Libby Holman.
After that, like many of his colleagues, he went to Hollywood to work in the emerging film industry for musical productions of Paramount Studios. His partner during this period was song lyricist Leo Robin; together they formed one of the leading songwriting duos of the 1930s and early 1940s. They wrote over 50 hits, initially mostly songs for Bing Crosby such as "Please," "Here Live Love" (1932), "June in January," and "With Every Breathe I Take" (1934). The song Love in Bloom from the movie She Loves Me Not sung by Bing Crosby was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Song in 1935. The song "Easy Living" from the 1937 film of the same name became a jazz standard interpreted by Billie Holiday.
Other successes included "Thanks for the Memory," written for Bob Hope and Shirley Ross (The Big Broadcast of 1938, 1938).
Leo Robin & Ralph Rainger worked together until Rainger's sudden accidental death when he crashed a plane near Palm Springs, California on October 23, 1942. He was a passenger aboard an American Airlines DC-3 civilian plane that collided with a U.S. Army Air Corps bomber; he lived to be only 41 years old.
Note: Translated from a German version of Wikipedia.
