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In Remembrance: Leonard Rosenman
Leonard
Rosenman, the two time Academy Award winning composer, has passed
away on March 4, 2008 in Woodland Hills, California. He was 83.
Already a well
regarded composer before he began work in Hollywood, Rosenman lead
the way in incorporating more modern musical ideas into the
predominantly 19th century romantic European style of
film soundtrack composition. In addition to his back-to-back Oscar
wins for Barry Lyndon (1975) and Bound For Glory
(1976), he was also nominated twice more for his work on Cross
Creek (1983) and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986).
Born in
Brooklyn, New York on September 7, 1924, Rosenman studied piano as a
youth. After serving in World War II, he studied with composers
Arnold Schoenberg and Roger Sessions. He also studied with Italian
composer Luigi Dallapiccola at Tanglewood in Massachusetts. Already
gaining notice as a promising young composer, Rosenman met actor
James Dean at a party in New York City, where the actor was working
on stage and in television. The two became friends, eventually
sharing an apartment together.
While working
on the film East Of Eden (1955), Dean brought Rosenman to the
attention of director Elia Kazan, who hired the composer to supply
the music for the film. Although his score mixed standard film music
ideas with more contemporary ones, he was immediately seen as a sell
out by many of his contemporaries in New York. Rosenman would score
another film featuring his friend Dean Nicholas Ray’s landmark
Rebel Without A Cause (1955).
Rosenman would also compose scores for such films as Pork Chop
Hill (1959), Hell Is For Heroes (1962), Fantastic
Voyage (1966), Hellfighters (1968), A Man Called Horse,
Beneath The Planet Of The Apes (both 1970), director Ralph
Bakshi’s animated adaptation Lord Of The Rings (1978), The
Jazz Singer (1980) and Robocop 2 (1990). He also composed
music for numerous television series and made-for-TV movies, earning
Emmys for his contributions to the TV movies Sybil (1976) and
Friendly Fire (1979). |
