Bob Harned, 1944-
I have lived and worked in New York City since January 1983. However, I was born in Des Moines, Iowa, on May 4, 1944, and my family moved to Honolulu, Hawaii, right after the end of World War II in November 1945.
In Honolulu, I attended Punahou School during my high school years. I spent five years at the University of Hawaii, earning a B.B.A (1966) in Business Administration with an Economics Minor and an M.L.S. (1967) in Library Science.
My first job after library school was as a cataloging librarian at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., where I stayed for a year. I then became a research librarian in academic libraries: University of Pennsylvania (Penn), Philadelphia (15 years), Baruch College, City University of New York (3 years), and then in a series of white-shoe law firms in New York City through the late 1980s and 1990s. My last position was in technical services in Brooklyn Law School, from which I took early retirement at age 62 in 2006.
While at Penn, in 1978-1979, I was able to take academic leave abroad to study Greek and Roman archaeology. This allowed me to obtain an M.A. at Penn in the same field in 1985.
I have a partner of over forty years, Arthur Schwartz. He is a prominent New York City food celebrity, who has had his own radio show on several networks, has been a restaurant critic and food editor for a major New York City newspaper, and has written seven cookbooks. He has also served as guest lecturer on various cruises around the world. We now live in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
Bob and Arthur, 1996
I have always been interested in performing. While in Honolulu as well as in Philadelphia, I was able to sing, dance, and act in several community theaters. It was in Philadelphia, however, that I ventured into singing solo, using a crooning style à la Frank Sinatra. After moving to New York, I performed in cabaret clubs in the Broadway area, with engagements at Eighty Eights, Danny’s, and Judy’s. The names of the acts were “I’m Old Fashioned,” “Sentimental Journey: A 1940s Song Revue,” and “The Songs of Fred Astaire.” These have all been recorded on DVD and are now fully available on this website.
After my musician/composer/arranger father died in 1994, I inherited his Pink and Blue Music Publishing Company. While reviewing his music compositions, I got the idea to record some of his songs. My first CD was “Harned Sings Harned,” singing ten of my father’s songs. After getting the recording bug, I did three more. The next was “Eat Drink, And Be Singing,” all songs about food and drink. The third was “My Hawaiian Songbook,” including songs I fondly remember hearing in the tourist shows while growing up in Hawaii. And, finally, “The Languages of Love,” comprising songs of love in twelve different languages. These have been carefully preserved on CDs and on SoundCloud, are available for sale on CD through me, and can also be heard through this website.
For ten years, 2002-2012, my partner and I ran periodic cooking school classes in a bed and breakfast in Paestum, Italy, a town filled with Greek and Roman archaeological sites. The town is in the Province of Salerno, south of the Amalfi Coast. When we were not cooking, we were doing wonderful archaeological touring, for which I am an expert guide.
After my partner and I quit running the cooking classes in Italy, I turned to writing. Over the next few years, I penned a biography about my actress mother, another about my magician grandfather, and then a biographical compilation of my most interesting ancestors. In addition, I compiled for publication a catalogue of my mother’s professional photo archive as well as an edited copy of a report which I submitted to Penn to obtain my M.A. in Greek and Roman Archaeology.