In 1940, Harry moved over to Twentieth Century Fox Studios, where he wrote for the likes of Glenn Miller (BOTH movies), Shirley Temple, Betty Grable, Alice Faye, Carmen Miranda, Jack Oakie, John Payne, Harry James, Sammy Kaye, and others. Harry was kept busy at Fox with lyricist Mack Gordon and later with Leo Robin (after his partner, Ralph Rainger, passed away), and from 1940 till 1943, about 70 songs were turned out, and a good number of them were big hits. Without Warren's "Chattanooga Choo Choo" and Glenn Miller's recording of it, would the "gold record" ever have existed? Yes, it sold a million copies, 1.2 million to be exact, and "Chattanooga Choo Choo" was the first gold record in history! The only thing Harry and Mack got for it was 12.5 percent of the royalties each, and Fox got the other 75 percent!

1943 brought "You'll Never Know," and over a million copies of the sheet music were sold. It garnered a second Academy Award for Harry Warren, and that song also helped to really launch the career of a man we all know and love, Dick Haymes! It is said to be his biggest recording. In late 1943, Warren signed with The Freed Unit at MGM and wrote two numbers for "Ziegfeld Follies" as well as the first few songs in the score for the Judy Garland film, "The Harvey Girls."
After his days at Twentieth Century-Fox, Harry went on to MGM to write for the afore-mentioned "The Harvey Girls" and other films. Harry won his final Academy Award for his "On The Atchison, Topeka And The Santa Fe," with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. The song was used as an eight-minute production number in "The Harvey Girls." At MGM, Warren mainly wrote scores for Fred Astaire movies, including one for the reunion of Astaire and Ginger Rogers in "The Barkleys Of Broadway." He also wrote for Mickey Rooney, Gene Kelly, Gloria De Haven, Cyd Charisse, Ann Miller, Red Skelton!, Howard Keel, Esther Williams, Vivian Blaine, the De Marco Sisters, Billy Eckstine, and others. Harry's favorite film of all the movies he worked on was "Summer Holiday," and the score he and Ralph Blane wrote for it is the most charming movie score I have ever heard. It was butchered on the cutting room floor though, with 3 excellent songs cut out, including an Omar Khayyam dream sequence! Harry wrote about 80 songs at MGM from 1943 through 1952. In 1949, he was loaned out to Warner Brothers for a Doris Day musical, "My Dream Is Yours," and wrote two additional hits. In 1952, Harry was released from his MGM contract and he immediately went to work on a Bing Crosby film, "Just For You," with 11 new songs in the score. Harry only worked on one picture in 1953, and that was a Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis film entitled "The Caddy." This movie was the birthplace of one of Harry's greatest hits, "That's AmorŽ," a song virtually everybody knows at least a portion of!
In 1954, Warren began work on the score for a Broadway show entitled "Shangri-La," which eventually opened in June 1956 and ran for only 23 performances. That score is also quite charming, but little of it has been made public, in sheet music form at least. In 1955, Harry wrote several songs for yet another Martin & Lewis film, as well as the very popular "The Legend Of Wyatt Earp," as used in the TV series "The Life And Legend Of Wyatt Earp." 1957 was the year of Harry's final Academy Award nomination, and in my humble opinion, he should have won it with such a standard as "An Affair To Remember"!

Harry wrote title songs for a couple movies and full scores for a couple more Jerry Lewis films into the early 60's, but after that, his kind of music was no longer needed in Hollywood. He continued to write music though, with friends, and he even wrote music for the Miss Oklahoma Pageant in 1964. Harry's music in the 1960's had basically the same quality as all the earlier songs he had written for movies, but nothing came close to becoming a hit. Harry's final movie invitation came in 1980 with a movie entitled "Manhattan Melody," and he wrote several new numbers for it (at the age of 86!). Sadly, the movie was never produced, but the songs are of exceptional quality, my favorite being "Bells."

1980 was also the year of the opening of the Broadway musical "42nd Street," which featured 13 or 14 Warren songs from his years at Warner Brothers. Harry's final musical contribution to the world was a number titled "Ungrateful Heart." Harry passed away on September 22, 1981, largely unknown by most of the general public. He is interred in the Sanctuary of Tenderness at Westwood Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California, with his wife and his son. Harry's marker reads:

[First four bars of "You'll Never Know"]

Harry S. Warren

1894-1981

Beloved husband, father, composer