About Anna Sosenko

ANNA SOSENKO (June 13, 1909 — June 9, 2000) born in Camden, NJ, was a songwriter, manager and Broadway legend who achieved great acclaim and popularity launching and sustaining some of the best known stage and entertainment careers of our time.

Sosenko was probably best known for her song “Darling, Je Vous Aime Beaucoup,” which she wrote at age 25 for Hildegarde — the incomparable Hildegarde — whose career as a world famous chanteuse Sosenko launched and managed for nearly three decades. Sosenko also nurtured the early careers of Alan Jay Lerner, Joseph Stein and other Broadway luminaries, and produced popular radio shows in the 1940s and 1950s.

Well into her 70s and 80s, Sosenko was a guiding spirit of the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame, now the National Academy of Popular Music, and produced a series of spectacular all-star theatrical tributes to Dorothy Fields, Richard Rogers, Joshua Logan, George Abbott, Ethel Merman, Mary Martin, Carol Channing, Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe, Jule Styne and others.

Thanks to Anna Sosenko’s compassionate understanding of the many obstacles facing performers in the early stages of their careers, and as a major contributor to the American Popular Music Songbook, she wished to have a fund for assisting career development of talented individuals in performance areas of theatre, opera and concert; hence The Anna Sosenko Assist Trust was established in 2001.

To read more about Anna’s life, see her obituary in the New York Times:
Anna Sosenko, 90, Producer, Songwriter and Stars’ Friend.