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In Memoriam · 1900 – 1970

Person · Composer

Alfred Newman

The most honored composer in Hollywood history and the patriarch of a musical dynasty, whose brassy fanfare still opens the movies (1900-1970).

Born
1900
Died
1970
  • Also:
  • Music Department
  • Actor
160
Credits on file
10
Decades active
40
Awards

In short · Composed for 10 decades — 160 credits, 9 Academy Award wins.

Recent & in release

  1. Award win

    Academy Awards — Oscar — Music (original Song Score or Adaptation Score)

  2. Award win

    Academy Awards — Oscar — Music (original Song Score or Adaptation Score)

  3. Award win

    Academy Awards — Oscar — Music (original Score)

  4. Award win

    Academy Awards — Oscar — Music (original Song Score or Adaptation Score)

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Biography

Born into poverty in New Haven, Connecticut, the eldest of ten children, Alfred Newman was a piano prodigy who played vaudeville to help feed his family and studied under demanding teachers who saw a concert career ahead of him. Instead he became a Broadway conductor in his twenties, working with the Gershwins and Rodgers and Hart, before Irving Berlin persuaded him to go west in 1930.

There he became the defining music executive of the studio era. As head of music at United Artists, then for Samuel Goldwyn, and for two decades at Twentieth Century-Fox, he shaped the sound of an entire studio, mentored younger composers, and built one of the great orchestras in the business, famous for a warm, singing string sound. He won nine Academy Awards, more than any other composer, for films including Alexander's Ragtime Band, Tin Pan Alley, The Song of Bernadette, With a Song in My Heart, Call Me Madam, The King and I, and Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, and he received forty-five nominations across his career.

He wrote sweepingly for drama - his Wuthering Heights and The Song of Bernadette are models of emotional restraint and lift - and had a gift for Americana and spectacle, from The Grapes of Wrath to How the West Was Won. Perhaps his most heard composition is the shortest: the Twentieth Century-Fox fanfare, its flourish still announcing films nearly a century on. He founded a dynasty as much as a style; brothers Lionel and Emil scored films, and his sons Thomas and David, along with nephew Randy, carried the family name deep into the modern era. He worked nearly to the end, completing Airport shortly before his death in 1970 and earning a posthumous nomination.

Filmography · 160 of 160

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Director

1 credit

Actor

3 credits

Composer

156 credits

Awards & Nominations

9 wins · 31 nominations

Academy Awards

  • Nom1970Oscar — Music (original Score)
  • Won1967Oscar — Music (original Song Score or Adaptation Score)
  • Nom1965Oscar — Music (original Score)
  • Nom1963Oscar — Music (original Score)
  • Nom1961Oscar — Music (original Song Score or Adaptation Score)
  • Nom1959Oscar — Music (original Score)
  • Nom1959Oscar — Music (original Song)
  • Nom1958Oscar — Music (original Song Score or Adaptation Score)
  • Won1956Oscar — Music (original Song Score or Adaptation Score)
  • Nom1956Oscar — Music (original Score)
  • Won1955Oscar — Music (original Score)
  • Nom1955Oscar — Music (original Song Score or Adaptation Score)
  • Nom1954Oscar — Music (original Song Score or Adaptation Score)
  • Won1953Oscar — Music (original Song Score or Adaptation Score)
  • Won1952Oscar — Music (original Song Score or Adaptation Score)
  • Nom1951Oscar — Music (original Score)
  • Nom1951Oscar — Music (original Song Score or Adaptation Score)
  • Nom1950Oscar — Music (original Score)
  • Nom1949Oscar — Music (original Song)
  • Nom1948Oscar — Music (original Score)
  • Nom1948Oscar — Music (original Song Score or Adaptation Score)
  • Won1947Oscar — Music (original Song Score or Adaptation Score)
  • Nom1947Oscar — Music (original Score)
  • Nom1946Oscar — Music (original Song Score or Adaptation Score)
  • Nom1945Oscar — Music (original Score)
  • Nom1945Oscar — Music (original Song Score or Adaptation Score)
  • Nom1944Oscar — Music (original Score)
  • Nom1944Oscar — Music (original Song Score or Adaptation Score)
  • Won1943Oscar — Music (original Score)
  • Nom1943Oscar — Music (original Song Score or Adaptation Score)
  • Nom1942Oscar — Music (original Score)
  • Nom1942Oscar — Music (original Song Score or Adaptation Score)
  • Nom1941Oscar — Music (original Score)
  • Won1940Oscar — Music (original Song Score or Adaptation Score)
  • Nom1940Oscar — Music (original Score)
  • Nom1939Oscar — Music (original Score)
  • Nom1939Oscar — Music (original Song Score or Adaptation Score)
  • Won1938Oscar — Music (original Song Score or Adaptation Score)
  • Nom1938Oscar — Music (original Score)
  • Nom1937Oscar — Music (original Song Score or Adaptation Score)

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