Herbert Stothart
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Herbert Stothart (September 11, 1885 – February 1, 1949) was a song writer, arranger, and composer. He was also nominated for nine Oscars, winning for his background music for The Wizard of Oz.
[edit] Biography
Herbert Stothart was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He studied music in Europe and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he later taught.
Stothart was first hired by producer Arthur Hammerstein to be a musical director for touring companies of Broadway shows, and was soon writing music for the producer's nephew Oscar Hammerstein. He composed some of the music in the famous operetta, Rose Marie. Stothart soon joined with many famous playwrights including Vincent Youmans, George Gershwin and Franz Lehar. In 1929, Stothart was signed to a large Hollywood contract by another would-be playwright of the day, Louis B. Mayer.
The last twenty years of his life were spent at MGM Studios, where he was under contract as a composer. One of the films that he worked on was the famous 1936 version of Rose Marie, starring Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy.
He died in Los Angeles, California at the age of 63.
[edit] Works
Herbert Stothart is credited as the composer of:
- A Night at the Opera (which also used music by Verdi,Leoncavallo, and Nacio Herb Brown, with some lyrics by Arthur Freed
- After the Thin Man
- Anna Karenina
- China
- David Copperfield
- The Good Earth
- The Green Years
- Idiot's Delight
- Madame Curie
- Mrs. Miniver
- Mutiny on the Bounty
- National Velvet
- Naughty Marietta (background music only; the songs were by Victor Herbert, Rida Johnson Young, and Gus Kahn
- The Picture of Dorian Gray
- Pride and Prejudice
- Rasputin and the Empress
- A Tale of Two Cities
- Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo
- The Wizard of Oz
- What Every Woman Knows
- The White Cliffs of Dover
- The Yearling (arrangement of Frederick Delius music)
