Today’s date marks the premiere in New York City, in 1925, of a classic operetta “The Vagabond King” by Rudolf Friml, the source of many once-popular sentimental tunes, including “Love Me Tonight,” and “Only a Rose.”

Friml was born in Prague in 1879, and he studied composition there with no less a master than Antonin Dvorak. He started his career as a piano accompanist to the famous Czech violinist Jan Kubelik, then emigrated to the U.S. in 1906. In 1907, he appeared as a soloist in his own First Piano Concerto with the New York Symphony, and decided to make America his home.

Friml wrote two piano concertos, a symphony, solo piano pieces—and three film scores for Hollywood. But he’s remembered today chiefly for 24 stage works, beginning in 1912 with “The Firefire,” his first big musical success, and continuing with many others, including the 1924 operetta “Rose Marie” — which in 1936 was made into a successful film starring Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. Their rendition of Friml’s “Indian Love Call” has become a campy cult classic.

Even Friml was occasionally embarrassed by the success of some of his flufflier pop works, and would publish some of these under the pseudonym of Roderick Freeman. He died in Los Angeles in 1972, aged 92.