TV and Film Composer Elmer Bernstein dies at 82

Bernstein scored over 150 films, 80 TV themes

By JON BURLINGAME

August 14, 2004

Elmer Bernstein, the Oscar-winning composer whose music graced such 1950s and '60s classics as "The Man With the Golden Arm," "The Magnificent Seven," "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "The Great Escape," died Wednesday afternoon at his home in Ojai after a long illness. He was 82.

Bernstein won his only Oscar for "Thoroughly Modern Millie" in 1967, but themes for many of his 150-plus films and 80-plus television scores were familiar to millions -- especially "Magnificent Seven," which became the signature tune for Marlboro cigarette ads throughout the 1960s.

He received 13 other Academy Award nominations, including those for "Golden Arm" (1955), "Magnificent Seven" (1960), "Mockingbird" (1962), "Hawaii" (1966), "The Age of Innocence" (1993) and "Far From Heaven" (2002). He was nominated in every one of the six decades since the 1950s.

In an era when Tchaikovsky and Wagner-style film scores were popular, Bernstein was one of the first to bring a specifically American sound to film music, particularly in the many Western scores he wrote in the aftermath of "Magnificent Seven," including "The Comancheros" (1961), "The Hallelujah Trail" (1965), "True Grit" (1969) and "The Shootist" (1976).

In addition to his robust, often rambunctious Western scores, he was among the first to import jazz sounds to the bigscreen, initially on "The Man With the Golden Arm" but later in "The Sweet Smell of Success" (1957), "The Rat Race" (1960) and "Walk on the Wild Side" (1962).

He also eschewed the large orchestras that were commonplace, preferring smaller, chamber-sized ensembles for intimate dramas such as "To Kill a Mockingbird," which is today recognized as a film-music classic.

He spent weeks coming up with the right approach to that film, which he characterized as "the piano being played one note at a time ... music-box sounds, bells, harps, things that suggested a child's world" -- because the film was largely told from the point of view of the children of the Southern lawyer played by Gregory Peck.

He often spoke of having to reinvent himself decade after decade. After the jazzy films of the '50s and Westerns of the '60s, he found himself in high demand for comedy scores beginning with "National Lampoon's Animal House" (1978). He did "Airplane!" (1980), "The Blues Brothers" (1980) and "Ghostbusters" (1984) before that trend ended.

For the past 15 years or so, Bernstein often returned to the sound of small instrumental combinations for quiet dramas that included "My Left Foot" (1989), "Rambling Rose" (1991) and "Far From Heaven," along with the occasional quirky score like "The Grifters" (1990) and large-scale orchestral works for Martin Scorsese, including the remake of "Cape Fear" -- in which he adapted the 1962 score for the original by his friend Bernard Herrmann -- and "The Age of Innocence."

The New York City native began piano studies with Juilliard teacher Henriette Michelson at the age of 12. The great American composer Aaron Copland encouraged Bernstein as a youngster; Bernstein later studied with composers Roger Sessions and Stefan Wolpe.

His first career was that of concert pianist. He gave his first concert at the age of 15 in New York's Steinway Hall.

During WWII, he arranged American folk music and wrote dramatic scores for Army Air Corps radio shows. He continued after the war as a classical pianist, but it was his radio composing that led to an offer to score a Hollywood movie in 1950. He scored "Saturday's Hero" and "Boots Malone" for Columbia; his unusual score for the Joan Crawford thriller "Sudden Fear" (1952) first brought him wide attention.

As a result of his left-leaning political sympathies, he was "graylisted" during the McCarthy era, resulting in fewer offers and scores for such low-budget films as the now cult favorites "Robot Monster" and "Cat Women of the Moon."

An offer to write dance music for Cecil B. DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" altered his career; when an ailing Victor Young dropped out as composer of the underscore, Bernstein got the main assignment, too.

The multithematic, rich orchestral tapestry of "Commandments" (1956) and the jazz backgrounds of "Golden Arm" made Bernstein a bankable commodity. He remained on Hollywood's A list of composers for nearly half a century.

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Bernstein also worked extensively in television, including themes and scores for "General Electric Theater," "Staccato," "Riverboat," "Julia," "The Rookies," "Ellery Queen" and perhaps his best-known TV signature, the fanfare for "National Geographic" specials. He also scored many documentaries for producer David L. Wolper, winning a 1964 Emmy for "The Making of the President 1960."

His telepic and miniseries scores included "Captains and the Kings," "The Chisholms," "Little Women," "Gulag" and the HBO movie "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge."

Bernstein enjoyed long relationships with several major directors including Scorsese, John Landis ("Animal House," "Trading Places"), John Sturges ("Magnificent Seven," "The Great Escape"), Robert Mulligan ("Mockingbird," "Baby the Rain Must Fall"), George Roy Hill ("Hawaii," "The World of Henry Orient") and Charles and Ray Eames (who made a series of short subjects including "Toccata for Toy Trains").

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He was also a leader in the music community, serving as president of the Composers & Lyricists Guild of America throughout the 1970s. He also was a past veepee of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, a founding life member of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, a former president of the Young Musicians Foundation and former president of the Film Music Society. He taught film-scoring classes at USC during the late 1990s.

Bernstein received Golden Globes for his scores for "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "Hawaii" and five Grammy nominations; he also earned two Tony noms for his rare excursions into the field of Broadway musicals -- "How Now Dow Jones" and "Merlin."

In recent years he had also turned his talents to the concert hall, writing a guitar concerto for Christopher Parkening as well as two song cycles, suites for symphony orchestra and compositions for viola and piano.

Bernstein enjoyed a career resurgence in 2001 and 2002, celebrating his 50th year in motion pictures with a tribute by AMPAS, a film series at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Oscar nomination for "Far From Heaven."

Survivors include his wife, Eve; two sons; two daughters; and five grandchildren.

Plans for a memorial service will be announced shortly.

He is survived by his girlfriend Jean Cochrane and a son.