The psychoanalysis and death of George Gershwin: an American tragedy.

The story of the noted composer George Gershwin's psychoanalysis and death resulting from an undiagnosed brain tumor 70 years ago are known today only in a garbled, incomplete form through biography and legend rather than history among psychoanalysts, neurologists, and neurosurgeons. This article examines his psychoanalysis with Gregory Zilboorg and the events and course of his final illness to the extent possible with the historical material now available. It provides an account of the behavior of his psychoanalyst in a variety of contexts as well as the actions of the other physicians attending him. We cannot know, but can only infer, what went on in his psychoanalytic sessions or his medical examinations; about this the reader will have to draw his or her own conclusions.