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Ponyfied Emer Bernsteen is looking at Boo Radley’s house across the street in Maycomb Alabama with Taran and Eilonwy by his side while Jean Louise Finch aka Scout swings on a tire swing

Film Scores: To Kill a Mockingbird, Airplane, The Black Caldron, The Ten Commandments, The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, Ghostbusters

In the history of film music, Elmer Bernstein (1922-2004) is among the iconic and the legendary. With a career that spanned an unparalleled 5 decades, he composed more than 150 original movie scores and nearly 80 for television, creating some of the most recognizable and memorable themes in Hollywood history. Elmer Bernstein’s life could have been set to music, and for many, it was. Affable, fearless and genuine, the man behind the music that has already surpassed the test of time was a man with a golden touch. His contribution to film music is celebrated. His contribution to new generations of aspiring musicians continues. His exuberance for life is still felt.

Born in New York of Ukrainian immigrant parents on April 4, 1922, he was originally destined for a career in classical music. As a young pianist, he gave his first concert at the age of 15 in New York’s Steinway Hall. Encouraged by Aaron Copland, he undertook composition studies with several important teachers including Roger Sessions and Stefan Wolpe. World War II intervened, and the young composer got his first taste of writing music for drama by working on radio shows in the Army Air Force. When the war ended, he returned to the highbrow world of classical piano, but continued to dabble in radio scoring for the United Nations and such legendary radio dramatists as Norman Corwin.His break came in 1950 when writer Millard Lampell, an old service buddy, convinced producer Sidney Buchman to hire the novice composer on a football movie he had written. Saturday’s Hero was made for Columbia, which released the film in 1951. The next year, his music for the Joan Crawford thriller, Sudden Fear, attracted critical attention. However, by 1953, he found himself virtually unemployable, reduced to doing B-movies like Robot Monster and Cat Women of the Moon. He soon learned that for his involvement with left-wing causes, he had been “graylisted”; and although he was never a member of the Communist Party, his having written music reviews for the “red” paper Daily Worker in the late ’40s, and having been associated with known party members, was enough to make the list. Bernstein wound up working as a rehearsal pianist for the ballet sequences in the film version of Oklahoma, and working with Danny Kaye’s wife, Sylvia Fine, jotting down her tunes for The Court Jester at Paramount. A studio music executive, taking pity on Bernstein, introduced him to Cecil B. De Mille, who was then shooting The Ten Commandments and who needed ancient-sounding music for dances in the film. Eventually, Victor Young—who had originally been signed to write the dramatic music—dropped out due to health reasons, and DeMille replaced the ailing composer with Bernstein. During the year and a half that he was working on The Ten Commandments, he also composed the groundbreaking jazz score for The Man With the Golden Arm for director Otto Preminger. The soundtrack album for Man With the Golden Arm shot to No. 2 on the Billboard album charts in 1956, becoming one of the first hit movie soundtracks. These scores catapulted Bernstein onto the “A” list of Hollywood composers and wiped out any more talk of “graylisting.” Golden Arm won him his first Oscar nomination and launched a series of jazz-oriented Bernstein scores, including Sweet Smell of Success, The Rat Race, TV’s Staccato and Walk on the Wild Side.

The jazz scores, plus the spate of Westerns and dramas that would dominate the composer’s work throughout the ’60s, helped to solidify his reputation as a master of musical Americana. The robust, exciting music of The Magnificent Seven brought another Oscar nomination and offers to do Westerns of all kinds, including seven John Wayne films, among them The Comancheros (1961), True Grit (1969) and The Shootist (1976).

Meanwhile, Bernstein’s close relationship with producer Alan J. Pakula and director Robert Mulligan led to one of his most memorable scores, and for one of the finest American movies ever made: To Kill a Mockingbird. The familiar classic about racial prejudice, set in a small town in the depression-ridden south, won Oscars for Gregory Peck and screenwriter Horton Foote in 1962, and a nomination for Bernstein. His understated music, composed for a chamber-sized ensemble rather than the more traditional full orchestra, quickly became a new model for film composers.

Bernstein’s versatility as a composer was again demonstrated when, the very next year, he created another classic with the theme for The Great Escape, a fact-based World War II adventure film about Allied soldiers who plan an elaborate escape from a prisoner-of-war camp. Throughout his career, Bernstein took on a number of leadership roles, including stints as vice president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Science. Bernstein’s career took a surprising turn in 1978, thanks to a call from his son Peter’s old school chum, John Landis. Landis, then 27 and a film director, asked Bernstein to score his raucous college comedy Animal House starring John Belushi. Almost overnight, Bernstein became Hollywood’s go-to composer for funny movies, and for the next decade he was largely typecast in that role. Airplane! came in 1980, followed over the next four years by the Saturday Night Live alumni movies, The Blues Brothers (John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd), Stripes (Bill Murray), and Ghostbusters (Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray). For his 1983 comedy, Trading Places, starring Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd, Landis talked Bernstein into crafting a classical score from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, for which he would receive an Oscar nomination for Best Adaptation Score.

Towards the end of his life, Bernstein returned to his classical roots, composing a well-received guitar concerto for celebrated guitarist Christopher Parkening. Bernstein’s last major film score was for the critically praised, Todd Haynes-directed drama, Far From Heaven, starring Julianne Moore and Dennis Haysbert. It earned him his final Academy Award nomination in 2002. On August 18, 2004, surrounded by family at his home in Ojai, California, Elmer Bernstein died of cancer. He was 82 years old. His memorial service, held in October at Paramount Pictures, saw an attendance of over 300 friends, family members, and colleagues, but he was mourned by millions. The world had lost one of its most celebrated and beloved film composers, but the music lives on, for new generations, in live concerts, film, television, and the internet.

Description

Ponyfied Emer Bernsteen is looking at Boo Radley’s house across the street in Maycomb Alabama with Taran and Eilonwy by his side while Jean Louise Finch aka Scout swings on a tire swing

Film Scores: To Kill a Mockingbird, Airplane, The Black Caldron, The Ten Commandments, The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, Ghostbusters

In the history of film music, Elmer Bernstein (1922-2004) is among the iconic and the legendary. With a career that spanned an unparalleled 5 decades, he composed more than 150 original movie scores and nearly 80 for television, creating some of the most recognizable and memorable themes in Hollywood history. Elmer Bernstein’s life could have been set to music, and for many, it was. Affable, fearless and genuine, the man behind the music that has already surpassed the test of time was a man with a golden touch. His contribution to film music is celebrated. His contribution to new generations of aspiring musicians continues. His exuberance for life is still felt.

Born in New York of Ukrainian immigrant parents on April 4, 1922, he was originally destined for a career in classical music. As a young pianist, he gave his first concert at the age of 15 in New York’s Steinway Hall. Encouraged by Aaron Copland, he undertook composition studies with several important teachers including Roger Sessions and Stefan Wolpe. World War II intervened, and the young composer got his first taste of writing music for drama by working on radio shows in the Army Air Force. When the war ended, he returned to the highbrow world of classical piano, but continued to dabble in radio scoring for the United Nations and such legendary radio dramatists as Norman Corwin.His break came in 1950 when writer Millard Lampell, an old service buddy, convinced producer Sidney Buchman to hire the novice composer on a football movie he had written. Saturday’s Hero was made for Columbia, which released the film in 1951. The next year, his music for the Joan Crawford thriller, Sudden Fear, attracted critical attention. However, by 1953, he found himself virtually unemployable, reduced to doing B-movies like Robot Monster and Cat Women of the Moon. He soon learned that for his involvement with left-wing causes, he had been “graylisted”; and although he was never a member of the Communist Party, his having written music reviews for the “red” paper Daily Worker in the late ’40s, and having been associated with known party members, was enough to make the list. Bernstein wound up working as a rehearsal pianist for the ballet sequences in the film version of Oklahoma, and working with Danny Kaye’s wife, Sylvia Fine, jotting down her tunes for The Court Jester at Paramount. A studio music executive, taking pity on Bernstein, introduced him to Cecil B. De Mille, who was then shooting The Ten Commandments and who needed ancient-sounding music for dances in the film. Eventually, Victor Young—who had originally been signed to write the dramatic music—dropped out due to health reasons, and DeMille replaced the ailing composer with Bernstein. During the year and a half that he was working on The Ten Commandments, he also composed the groundbreaking jazz score for The Man With the Golden Arm for director Otto Preminger. The soundtrack album for Man With the Golden Arm shot to No. 2 on the Billboard album charts in 1956, becoming one of the first hit movie soundtracks. These scores catapulted Bernstein onto the “A” list of Hollywood composers and wiped out any more talk of “graylisting.” Golden Arm won him his first Oscar nomination and launched a series of jazz-oriented Bernstein scores, including Sweet Smell of Success, The Rat Race, TV’s Staccato and Walk on the Wild Side.

The jazz scores, plus the spate of Westerns and dramas that would dominate the composer’s work throughout the ’60s, helped to solidify his reputation as a master of musical Americana. The robust, exciting music of The Magnificent Seven brought another Oscar nomination and offers to do Westerns of all kinds, including seven John Wayne films, among them The Comancheros (1961), True Grit (1969) and The Shootist (1976).

Meanwhile, Bernstein’s close relationship with producer Alan J. Pakula and director Robert Mulligan led to one of his most memorable scores, and for one of the finest American movies ever made: To Kill a Mockingbird. The familiar classic about racial prejudice, set in a small town in the depression-ridden south, won Oscars for Gregory Peck and screenwriter Horton Foote in 1962, and a nomination for Bernstein. His understated music, composed for a chamber-sized ensemble rather than the more traditional full orchestra, quickly became a new model for film composers.

Bernstein’s versatility as a composer was again demonstrated when, the very next year, he created another classic with the theme for The Great Escape, a fact-based World War II adventure film about Allied soldiers who plan an elaborate escape from a prisoner-of-war camp. Throughout his career, Bernstein took on a number of leadership roles, including stints as vice president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Science. Bernstein’s career took a surprising turn in 1978, thanks to a call from his son Peter’s old school chum, John Landis. Landis, then 27 and a film director, asked Bernstein to score his raucous college comedy Animal House starring John Belushi. Almost overnight, Bernstein became Hollywood’s go-to composer for funny movies, and for the next decade he was largely typecast in that role. Airplane! came in 1980, followed over the next four years by the Saturday Night Live alumni movies, The Blues Brothers (John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd), Stripes (Bill Murray), and Ghostbusters (Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray). For his 1983 comedy, Trading Places, starring Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd, Landis talked Bernstein into crafting a classical score from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, for which he would receive an Oscar nomination for Best Adaptation Score.

Towards the end of his life, Bernstein returned to his classical roots, composing a well-received guitar concerto for celebrated guitarist Christopher Parkening. Bernstein’s last major film score was for the critically praised, Todd Haynes-directed drama, Far From Heaven, starring Julianne Moore and Dennis Haysbert. It earned him his final Academy Award nomination in 2002. On August 18, 2004, surrounded by family at his home in Ojai, California, Elmer Bernstein died of cancer. He was 82 years old. His memorial service, held in October at Paramount Pictures, saw an attendance of over 300 friends, family members, and colleagues, but he was mourned by millions. The world had lost one of its most celebrated and beloved film composers, but the music lives on, for new generations, in live concerts, film, television, and the internet.