Adolph Deutsch(1897-1980)

London-born piano child prodigy Adolph Deutsch trained at the Royal Academy of Music from the age of eight and composed his first piece, a waltz for piano, entitled "La Charmeuse", two years later. He moved to the U.S. in 1910 and got his first job working for a publishing house, during which time he took pains to attend musical recitals and rehearsals and fully immerse himself into the art of orchestration and composition. During the 1920's and early 30's, Deutsch free-lanced variously as arranger and musical director in New York and Chicago, turning out numerous top-flight arrangements for leading dance bands of the day. He spent five years as arranger/conductor with Paul Ash's semi-symphonic orchestra, which performed regularly at the Oriental and Paramount theatres. This was followed by a 39-week stint on The Kraft Music Hall radio show and a year with legendary bandleader Paul Whiteman's Musical Varieties network radio broadcast.

In 1937, Deutsch was signed to a personal contract by director Mervyn LeRoy for Warner Brothers. Six years later, he founded the Screen Composer's Association and eventually served ten years (1943-53) as its president and another two years as Professor Emeritus. During his tenure at Warners he composed often subtle music for many of the studio's moody, low key films noir and melodramas. They included Le faucon maltais (1941), Jordan le révolté (1942), Le masque de Dimitrios (1944) and the haunting score for La Grande Évasion (1941), reminiscent of Max Steiner, and complete with a rousing, up-beat finale. His regular orchestrators during this period were Jerome Moross and Arthur Lange.

Since Ray Heindorf handled the relatively few musicals made at Warners, Deutsch did not have a lot to do with the genre until he joined MGM in 1948, as a replacement for the ailing Herbert Stothart. Handed an eight-year contract, Deutsch first assisted on the musical Amour en croisière (1948) and then received several prestige assignments, beginning with the Technicolor re-make of Les quatre filles du Dr March (1949). He was subsequently promoted to musical director for MGM's lavish musicals Annie, la reine du cirque (1950), Show Boat (1951) and La belle de New York (1952). He won three Oscars for Best Score, the first for "Annie Get Your Gun", the other two for Les sept femmes de Barberousse (1954) and Oklahoma! (1955).

In addition to his studio work, Deutsch composed a symphonic work, "The Scottish Suite" (1936) and a "Prelude and Salute to Oscar" for the 18th Academy Award Presentation in 1946. His instrumental compositions include the numbers 'Clarabelle', 'Three Sisters', 'Skyride', 'Margo', 'Stairway' and 'Lonely Room' (the main theme from The Apartment). From 1946 to 1947, Deutsch also served as musical director on Hedda Hopper's weekly national radio broadcast of "This Is Hollywood".