Music fans might sum up George Gershwin as:
"The Man I Love."
That infatuation drew 20,000 idolizers to his memorial concert in New York in August 1937, a month after his death.
Sadness likewise resonated in the Hollywood Bowl to the tune of 26,000 for a September '37 commemoration.
Such adulation sang to Gershwin in his 38 short years, with a stunning crescendo coming in 1924 for his "Rhapsody in Blue" concert that ignited three curtain calls at a packed Aeolian Hall in New York.
Those followers put their money where their hearts were — making Gershwin a rich man. After his hit song "Swanee" in 1919, he became a cash magnet, building an estate estimated upon his death at $400,000, or $6.3 million today.
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