Buddy Bernier

Among his earliest successes came in 1935, when he had a hit with the song "I Haven't Got A Hat".^[2] In 1937, he was credited with being responsible for a sudden dance craze named the "Big Apple", after being inspired by reading a newspaper clipping which mentioned a southern dance type around the floor in an apple shape. Bernier wrote a song about it, naming it "The Big Apple", which shot to the top of the Hit parade, "engulfed the country in a new dance craze" and went on to sell thousands of sheet music copies.^[3] The hit brought him success and he soon moved to New York, where he wrote other hits such as "Hurry Home" and "Our Love". He was followed to New York by his sister Daisy, who landed a dancing role.^[4] In February 1947, he visited the Virgin Islands to write an advertisement song about the islands, hoping it would "catchy enough" to reach number one in the summer of that year.^[5]

Bernier wrote the lyrics for "Poinciana", a 1936 tune by composer Nat Simon that was in the 1952 film Dreamboat.^[6] Despite having written the lyrics in 1936, he confessed in 1944 to having never seen a poinciana tree, although hoped he would do so during his time in the army.^[7] He was also the lyricist on "The Night Has a Thousand Eyes" (not to be confused with the Bobby Vee song of the same name), co-written with Jerry Brainin and covered by John Coltrane, Harry Belafonte, and others.^[1]

In his later years, he collaborated with his daughter Cindy and her band in a medley of some of his original compositions that he had written during the 1940s.^[8]

He was enlisted into the armed forces in April 1941^[9] and served as a gun chief and radar operator on a B-52. He was a corporal of the Lincoln Army Air Field^[3] and flew seventeen missions over Japan^[10] before being discharged in March 1946.^[11]