Alfred Newman facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Alfred Newman
Newman in 1913
Born	(1900-03-17)March 17, 1900 New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.
Died	February 17, 1970(1970-02-17) (aged 69) Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Resting place	Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale
Occupation	Composer, conductor, arranger
Spouse(s)	Martha Louise Montgomery ​ (m. 1947⁠–⁠1970)​
Children	5 including David, Thomas, and Maria Newman
Relatives	Emil Newman (brother) Lionel Newman (brother) Randy Newman (nephew) Joey Newman (grandnephew)
Musical career
Genres	Film score
Years active	1915–1970

Alfred Newman (born March 17, 1900 – died February 17, 1970) was an American composer, arranger, and conductor of music for movies. He was a music genius from a young age. He became a very important person in the history of film music.

Newman won nine Academy Awards (Oscars) and was nominated 45 times! This makes his family, the Newman family, the most nominated family for Oscars in music categories. They have a total of 92 nominations.

During his career, which lasted over 40 years, Newman composed music for more than 200 movies. Some of his most famous movie scores include Wuthering Heights, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Mark of Zorro, How Green Was My Valley, The Song of Bernadette, All About Eve, and Airport. Many of these were nominated for or won Academy Awards.

He is also famous for creating the short, exciting music piece (called a fanfare) that plays at the beginning of 20th Century Fox movies. He also composed fanfares for other studios like Samuel Goldwyn and David O. Selznick. Newman was also a great conductor. He arranged and conducted music by other famous composers like George Gershwin and Charlie Chaplin. He worked on Broadway for ten years before coming to Hollywood. He conducted music for many movie versions of Broadway musicals.

Alfred Newman was one of the first musicians to write and conduct original music during Hollywood's "Golden Age" of movies. He became a respected and powerful music director. People often called Newman, Max Steiner, and Dimitri Tiomkin the "three godfathers of film music."

Early Life of a Music Star

Alfred Newman was born on March 17, 1900, in New Haven, Connecticut. He was the oldest of ten children. His parents were Russian-Jewish immigrants who came to the U.S. just before he was born.

His mother, Luba, loved music because her father was a cantor (a singer who leads prayers) in Russia. She sent Alfred for piano lessons when he was five. Sometimes, he walked ten miles just to get to his lessons! His family was very poor. Once, they even had to sell their dog to buy food.

By age eight, Alfred was known as a piano genius in his town. A famous pianist named Ignacy Jan Paderewski helped him arrange a concert in New York. There, Alfred studied with great teachers like Sigismund Stojowski. Stojowski even convinced a ticket inspector to let young Alfred travel for free sometimes. Alfred won silver and gold medals in music competitions. He also studied how to compose music.

First Jobs as a Pianist

When Alfred was 12, his family needed more money. He started playing piano in theaters and restaurants. He often played five shows a day, usually accompanying singers. A star named Grace La Rue was so impressed that she hired him as her regular pianist.

At 13, Alfred also caught the attention of writer Ella Wheeler Wilcox. She wanted to help him succeed in music. She admired his ability to play classical music and even compose his own. She said he was a "beautiful looking boy, modest, gentle, unassuming, and wholly unspoiled." She noted his strong desire to succeed to make his parents happy.

Alfred traveled with La Rue's show on the vaudeville circuit. He was billed as "The Marvelous Boy Pianist." Sometimes, he was allowed to conduct the orchestras. This made him want to become a conductor. An experienced music director, William Merrigan Daly, taught him the basics of conducting. By age fifteen, Alfred was regularly conducting matinee shows. Even the famous Cincinnati Symphony conductor Fritz Reiner was impressed and invited him to be a guest conductor.

Becoming a Broadway Conductor

At nineteen, Alfred started conducting full-time in New York City. This began his ten-year career on Broadway. He conducted musicals by famous composers like George Gershwin and Richard Rodgers. He conducted shows like George White's Scandals (1919) and Funny Face (1927). Alfred said he was always happiest as a conductor. He studied music composition to become a better conductor.

In 1930, composer Irving Berlin invited him to Hollywood. Alfred was to conduct Berlin's music for the film Reaching for the Moon. Even though most of Berlin's songs were removed from the movie, Newman stayed on. He received credit for directing the music, which was his first job in Hollywood.

Film Scoring Career

The 1930s: Hollywood Beginnings

After his first Hollywood job, producer Samuel Goldwyn offered Alfred Newman a contract. His first full movie score was for Goldwyn's Street Scene in 1931. The music sounded like the busy streets of New York City. He later used this music in other films, like How to Marry a Millionaire (1953).

In 1931, Charlie Chaplin hired Newman to arrange music for his film City Lights. He worked with Chaplin again for Modern Times in 1936. A reporter saw them working together. Newman carefully timed the music to Chaplin's movements, like in the factory scene.

Newman became Goldwyn's favorite composer. His style grew with each movie. He scored many adventure stories, romances, and historical films. He also took lessons from Arnold Schoenberg, a famous composer who moved to the U.S. in 1934.

Newman won his first Academy Award for Alexander's Ragtime Band in 1938. In 1939, he wrote the music for Wuthering Heights. His score used different musical themes for the main characters, which helped tell the story. For example, Cathy's theme was soft and flowing, while Heathcliff's was darker. He also composed music for Gunga Din and Beau Geste that year.

Newman was especially good at scoring films with religious themes, even though he wasn't known to be very religious himself. These films included The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), The Song of Bernadette (1943), and The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965).

In 1933, while working for United Artists, Newman was asked to create a fanfare for Twentieth Century Pictures. This fanfare would play before their movies. When Twentieth Century Pictures merged with Fox Film Corporation in 1935 to form 20th Century-Fox, the fanfare and logo stayed. It's still one of the most recognized movie studio logos today!

The 1940s: Music Director at Fox

In 1940, Newman began a 20-year career as the music director at 20th Century-Fox Studios. He composed over 200 film scores, and nine of them won Academy Awards. He did many jobs at the studio: composer, arranger, music director, and conductor. He preferred arranging and conducting because composing was lonely and demanding. The stress of his work contributed to his heavy smoking, which later caused emphysema.

He created the "Newman System," a way to perfectly match the music to the film. This system is still used today. Newman's music always fit the overall mood of each film. He also created special themes for different characters, making their roles stronger. This style made the music connect the whole story, helping viewers understand the film's message.

The Song of Bernadette (1943) is considered one of Newman's most beautiful scores. He recorded it with an 80-piece orchestra. He used different musical ideas to show different parts of the story. For example, a brass sound represented the church, while strings showed Bernadette's kindness. Newman added sounds of wind and leaves to make Bernadette's visions seem magical.

For the film Wilson (1944), about President Woodrow Wilson, Newman did a lot of research. He learned about Wilson's family, the songs they sang, and the music they liked. The film included about forty American-themed songs, making it feel very real for the time period.

In the 1940s, Newman scored many films about World War II. These included A Yank in the R.A.F. (1941) and Twelve O'Clock High (1949). He also created music for some of Frank Capra's Why We Fight documentary series.

Newman often studied music from different time periods and used it in his scores. For How Green Was My Valley (1941), he used Welsh hymns. For How The West Was Won (1962), he turned folk tunes into powerful orchestral pieces. In The Grapes of Wrath (1940), he used the folk song "Red River Valley." He was skilled at blending traditional music with new scores. For Love is a Many Splendored Thing, he created music with a Chinese feel.

In 1947, he composed the music for Captain from Castile. This included the famous "Conquest march," a powerful piece for the Spanish explorers. The University of Southern California (USC) later adopted this march as the official theme song for their sports teams, the USC Trojans. Newman also conducted music for a film about composer John Philip Sousa, Stars and Stripes Forever (1952), which featured many of Sousa's famous marches.

The dramatic music for The Snake Pit (1948), a film set in a mental hospital, used special effects to make the audience feel the fear and discomfort of the characters.

The 1950s: More Awards and Innovations

Alfred Newman (left) and associate producer George Stevens Jr. discuss The Diary of Anne Frank at a press conference in Amsterdam (July 1958)

In 1952, With a Song in My Heart earned Newman his fifth Academy Award. Walt Disney presented it to him. The Robe (1953), a movie about the New Testament, was another of Newman's religious scores. Its music felt grand and simple. It was the first film in Cinemascope, using 4-channel stereo sound. This allowed Newman to experiment with different moods.

In 1954, Newman added more music to his 20th Century-Fox fanfare. He made it longer with warm, soaring strings to promote the new CinemaScope movie format. This longer version is still used today. His son, David, re-recorded this fanfare in 1997, and that's the version heard now.

Newman received his eighth Oscar for The King and I in 1956. In 1959, he composed the music for The Diary of Anne Frank. This movie tells the sad true story of a young girl during World War II. Newman's music focused on Anne's hopeful personality. She believed people were good at heart, as her diary showed. The music used uplifting violins and an old European sound for Anne. In contrast, the music for the Nazis was a "heavy march" to create a scary feeling. This score was nominated for an Oscar.

The 1960s: Final Scores

Newman's last movie score under his Fox contract was The Best of Everything (1959). After leaving Fox in 1960, Newman worked independently. He wrote music for films like MGM's How the West Was Won (1962). Many people consider this his most famous and best score. It's even on a list of the 100 greatest film scores. This score and The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) were nominated for Oscars.

The Greatest Story Ever Told was a difficult project for Newman. The director, George Stevens, changed the film and music a lot. Other composers had to help fix parts of the music. Newman's two choir endings were replaced with George Frideric Handel's famous "Hallelujah Chorus."

Newman kept working until he died. He scored Universal Pictures' Airport (1970) shortly before his death.

Death

Alfred Newman died on February 17, 1970, at age 69. He passed away at his home in Hollywood due to problems from emphysema.

Legacy and Influence

Alfred Newman is remembered as one of the most important and respected people in film music history. He received an amazing 45 Oscar nominations. His nine Academy Awards are more than any other music director or composer has received.

His nine Academy Awards were for:

• Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938)
• Tin Pan Alley (1940)
• The Song of Bernadette (1943)
• Mother Wore Tights (1947)
• With a Song in My Heart (1952)
• Call Me Madam (1953)
• Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (1955)
• The King and I (1956)
• Camelot (1967)

Song of Bernadette and Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing were original scores. The others were musical adaptations.

He composed the well-known fanfare for 20th Century Fox, which still plays today. A part of Newman's music for The Prisoner of Zenda (1937) also became the standard music for the Selznick International Pictures logo. In 1999, the Allan Hancock Auditorium at the University of Southern California was renamed the Alfred Newman Recital Hall.

Even when he wasn't officially working on a movie, studio heads often asked Newman for advice, which he freely gave. He helped other musicians explore new ideas. As a music director, Newman also found and hired talented composers for films. If he saw a composer's potential, he could offer them long-term contracts. Some historians believe that without Newman, composers like Bernard Herrmann and Alex North might not have had such big careers in Hollywood.

The legacy of Alfred Newman and his influence on the language of music for the cinema is practically unmatched by anyone in Hollywood history. As an executive, he was hard but fair. As a mentor to his staff he was revered. The orchestras under his baton delighted in his abilities as a conductor. The music he himself composed, often under extreme emotional duress, is among the most gorgeous ever written. […] Not big in physical stature, he was a giant in character, a titan in the world he loved and dominated. He was a true musical force, and one that cannot in any sense be replaced.

In 1999, the United States Postal Service honored him with a stamp.

The Newman Family of Composers

Alfred Newman married Martha Louise Montgomery. They had five children. He was the head of a family full of major Hollywood film composers:

• His brother Lionel Newman scored many films and TV series. He took over Alfred's role as Fox's music director.
• His brother Emil Newman was a music director for over eighty films.
• His son David Newman has scored nearly one hundred films. These include The War of the Roses and Ice Age. He has received an Academy Award nomination.
• His son Thomas Newman has scored over seventy-five films. These include The Shawshank Redemption, American Beauty, and Finding Nemo. He has received fifteen Academy Award nominations.
• His daughter Maria Newman is a talented musician and composer.
• His nephew Randy Newman is a two-time Academy Award winner. He is known for his film work and his popular songs.
• His grandnephew Joey Newman has scored many TV series, films, and video games.
• His granddaughter Jaclyn Newman is a music editor. She won a Golden Reel Award for 30 Days of Night: Dark Days.

Notable Film Scores

Alfred Newman wrote music for over 200 films. Here are some of his major film scores and adaptations:

Images for kids

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  Newman in 1913

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  Alfred Newman (left) and associate producer George Stevens Jr. discuss The Diary of Anne Frank at a press conference in Amsterdam (July 1958)

See also

In Spanish: Alfred Newman para niños