Emily Paley

Emily Strunsky grew up in Greenwich Village and was a childhood friend of George and Ira Gershwin. In 1920 she married Louis M. Paley. Emily was also friends with the Gershwins and had written lyrics for several of George's songs. George played at Emily and Lou's wedding. After Emily and Lou married, the Paleys' apartment in Greenwich Village was the site of famous Saturday night musical salons. Emily's sister Leonore married Ira Gershwin.

In 1926, Emily Paley sent George Gershwin a copy of Du Bose Heyward's 1925 hit novel "Porgy," which eventually led to the creation of the opera "Porgy and Bess" in 1935.

from Michael Strunsky (son of Emily's brother English), in June 2010:

"In about 1918 George Gershwin was a song plugger at Remick's, a music publishing house on Tin Pan Alley (28th Street, I think). You remember, the pluggers were the first line salesmen whose job it was to get vaudeville performers to include a new song in his (her) act, resulting in sheet music sales. One night a co-plugger in the next cubicle by the name of Herman Paley invited GG to his family's house for dinner. At dinner was Herman's younger brother Lou Paley, and Lou's very pretty girlfriend, Emily Strunsky. The three of them formed a friendship that lasted until George's death in 1937, and they formed the partnership that finally convinced George's older brother Ira to wed Emily's younger sister, Leonore (Lee) in 1926. George played at Emily and Lou's wedding in 1920 and, a few weeks later, accompanied them to a house in Harlem to test a used Steinway piano (they bought it) which today sits in my living room in San Francisco."

Cremated. Urn is in the Gershwin family mausoleum.