Ray Heindorf
Template:Short description Template:Use American English Template:Use mdy dates Script error: No such module "infobox".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Template:Main otherScript error: No such module "Check for clobbered parameters".Template:Wikidata image Raymond John Heindorf (August 25, 1908 – February 3, 1980) was an American composer and songwriter who was noted for his work in film.
Early life
Born in Haverstraw, New York, Heindorf worked as a pianist in a silent movie house in Mechanicville in his early teens.[1] In 1928, he moved to New York City, where he landed a job as a musical arranger before heading to Hollywood in late February 1929.[2] He gained his first job as an orchestrator at MGM, where he worked on Hollywood Revue of 1929, and subsequently went on the road playing piano for Lupe Vélez.[1]
Hollywood years
After completing the tour with Vélez, Heindorf joined Warner Bros., composing, arranging and conducting music exclusively for the studio for nearly forty years. He, along with George Stoll at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, were jazz aficionados well known in the black entertainment community for employing minority musicians in their studio music departments.[3]
Heindorf appeared on screen, uncredited, as the orchestra leader in several films such as My Wild Irish Rose (1947), Young Man with a Horn (1950), and I'll See You in My Dreams (1951). He undertook the musical direction of Judy Garland's comeback film A Star is Born (1954) and made a cameo as himself in the premiere party sequence where Jack Carson's character congratulates him on a great score.[4]
Among Heindorf's other screen credits as musical director, composer, or music supervisor and conductor are 42nd Street, Gold Diggers of 1935, Knute Rockne All American, The Great Lie, Kings Row, Night and Day, Tea for Two, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Jazz Singer, Calamity Jane, No Time for Sergeants, The Helen Morgan Story, Marjorie Morningstar, Damn Yankees, Auntie Mame, The Young Philadelphians, Finian's Rainbow, and his final musical for Jack L. Warner, 1776.[5][6]
Academy Awards
Between 1942 and 1969, Heindorf was nominated for eighteen Academy Awards, seventeen of them for Best Score and one nomination for Best Song. He won three times in the category of Best Score of a Musical, for Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), This is the Army (1943), and The Music Man (1962). His awards in 1942 and '43 made him one of the first composers or songwriters to win Oscars in consecutive years in a musical category.[1][7]
Jazz recordings
Heindorf was a friend and admirer of jazz pianist Art Tatum. As a gift for their mutual friends, Heindorf hosted two Tatum piano performances at his Hollywood home in 1950 and 1955. He recorded these private concerts, which were issued as Art Tatum: 20th Century Piano Genius on the Verve label.
Personal life
Census records from 1930 show that Heindorf was living at the time in the Hollywood Hills with his friend Arthur Lange, a bandleader and composer.[8] Heindorf was later married and divorced twice and had three children. His son Michael was also a film composer.[1]
References
External links
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- ↑ a b c d Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
- ↑ "M.H.S. Five Closes Year in Tilt at Hoosick Falls" ("word has been received...of his safe arrival"). The Saratogian, 1 March 1929, 11.
- ↑ Clora Bryant & Steven Isoardi (1999), Central Avenue Sounds: Jazz in Los Angeles, University of California Press, p. 68
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- 1908 births
- 1980 deaths
- 20th-century American composers
- 20th-century American conductors (music)
- 20th-century American male musicians
- 20th-century American pianists
- American film score composers
- American male composers
- American male conductors (music)
- American male pianists
- 20th-century male pianists
- American music arrangers
- American television composers
- Best Original Music Score Academy Award winners
- Burials at San Fernando Mission Cemetery
- Classical musicians from New York (state)
- Musicians from Greater Los Angeles
- People from Haverstraw, New York
- RCA Victor artists
- Songwriters from New York (state)
- Warner Bros. people
- Warner Records artists
- American male songwriters
- 20th-century American songwriters