Oh, Lady Be Good! Oh, Lady Be Good! "Oh, Lady Be Good!" is a 1924 song by George and Ira Gershwin. It was introduced by Walter Catlett in the Broadway musical "Lady, Be Good!" written by Guy Bolton, Fred Thompson, and the Gershwin brothers and starring Fred and Adele Astaire. The song was also performed by the chorus in the film "Lady Be Good" (1941), although the film is unrelated to the musical. Recordings in 1925 were by Paul Whiteman, Carl Fenton, and Cliff Edwards. A 1947 recording of the song became a hit for Ella Fitzgerald, notable for her scat solo. For her
George Gershwin collect significant royalties from licensing the copyrights on his work. The estate supported the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act because its 1923 cutoff date was shortly before Gershwin had begun to create his most popular works. The copyrights on all Gershwin's solo works expired at the end of 2007 in the European Union, based on its life-plus-70-years rule. In 2005, "The Guardian" determined using "estimates of earnings accrued in a composer's lifetime" that George Gershwin was the wealthiest composer of all time. In September 2013, a partnership between the estates of Ira and George Gershwin and the University of