Moon River Moon River "Moon River" is a song composed by Henry Mancini with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. It was originally performed by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's", winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song. The song also won the 1962 Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year. The song has been covered by many other artists. It became the theme song for Andy Williams, who first recorded it in 1962 (and performed it at the Academy Awards ceremony that year). He sang the first eight bars of the song at the
Blue Moon (1934 song) New York. Gallese wrote in a memoir "Blue Moon - In Search of The Song My Father Wrote", that her musician father had sent the words and music to song brokers Mahoney and Associates, but the brokers stopped communicating after a while, and then the song was published as if it had been composed by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. Roman sued for redress in October 1936. Rodgers and Hart were contracted to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in May 1933. They were soon commissioned to write the songs for "Hollywood Party", a film that was to star many of the studio's top artists.