Alfred Newman is an American composer, arranger, and conductor of film music.
From his start as a music prodigy, he came to be regarded as a respected figure in the history of film music. He won nine Academy Awards and was nominated 45 times, contributing to the Newmans being the most nominated Academy Award extended family, with a collective 92 nominations in various music categories.
In a career spanning more than four decades, Newman composed the scores for over 200 motion pictures. Some of his most famous scores include Alles über Eva (1950), Anastasia (1956), Stürmische Höhen (1939), Der Glöckner von Notre Dame (1939), Im Zeichen des Zorro (1940), So grün war mein Tal (1941), Das Lied von Bernadette (1943), Der Hauptmann von Kastilien (1947), Alle Herrlichkeit auf Erden (1955), Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank (1959), Das war der wilde Westen (1962), Die größte Geschichte aller Zeiten (1965), and his final score, Airport (1970), all of which were nominated for or won Academy Awards. He is perhaps best known for composing the fanfare which accompanies the studio logo at the beginning of 20th Century Fox's productions.
Newman was highly regarded as a conductor, and arranged and conducted many scores by other composers, including George Gershwin, Charles Chaplin, and Irving Berlin. He also conducted the music for many film adaptations of Broadway musicals (having worked on Broadway for ten years before coming to Hollywood), as well as many original Hollywood musicals.
He was among the first musicians to compose and conduct original music during Hollywood's Golden Age of movies, later becoming a respected and powerful music director in the history of Hollywood.
