Danny Elfman

Composer

Danny Elfman was born in Los Angeles, California, United States on May 29th, 1953 and is the Composer. At the age of 70, Danny Elfman biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, movies, and networth are available.

  Report
Other Names / Nick Names
Daniel Robert Elfman
Date of Birth
May 29, 1953
Nationality
United States
Place of Birth
Los Angeles, California, United States
Age
70 years old
Zodiac Sign
Gemini
Networth
$75 Million
Profession
Actor, Composer, Film Score Composer, Musician, Record Producer, Singer, Singer-songwriter
Social Media
Danny Elfman Height, Weight, Eye Color and Hair Color

At 70 years old, Danny Elfman has this physical status:

Height
178cm
Weight
Not Available
Hair Color
Red
Eye Color
Not Available
Build
Slim
Measurements
Not Available
Danny Elfman Religion, Education, and Hobbies
Religion
Jewish
Hobbies
Not Available
Education
Not Available
Danny Elfman Spouse(s), Children, Affair, Parents, and Family
Spouse(s)
Bridget Fonda ​(m. 2003)​
Children
Not Available
Dating / Affair
Not Available
Parents
Not Available
Danny Elfman Life

Daniel Robert Elfman (born May 29, 1953) is an American composer, singer, songwriter, record producer, actor and voice actor.

He first became well known as the singer-songwriter for the new wave band Oingo Boingo in the early 1980s, and has since garnered international recognition for writing over 100 feature film scores, as well as compositions for television, stage productions and the concert hall. Elfman has frequently worked with directors Tim Burton, Sam Raimi and Gus Van Sant, with notable achievements the scores for 16 of Burton's films including Batman, Edward Scissorhands, Alice in Wonderland and Dumbo; Raimi's Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, and Oz the Great and Powerful; and Van Sant's Academy Award-nominated films Good Will Hunting and Milk.

He wrote music for all of the Men in Black and Fifty Shades of Grey franchise films, the songs and score for the Burton-produced animated musical The Nightmare Before Christmas, and the themes for the popular television series Desperate Housewives and The Simpsons.Among his honors are four Oscar nominations, two Emmy Awards, a Grammy, six Saturn Awards for Best Music, the 2002 Richard Kirk Award, and the Disney Legend Award in 2015.

Early life

Elfman was born on May 29, 1953 in Los Angeles, California, to a Jewish family of Polish-Jewish and Russian-Jewish descent. He is a son of Blossom Elfman (née Bernstein), a writer and teacher, and Milton Elfman, a teacher, and the brother of actor, musician, and journalist Richard Elfman. Elfman was raised in a racially mixed affluent community in Baldwin Hills, California, where he spent much of his time at the local movie theater discovering classic sci-fi, fantasy and horror films and first noticed the music of such film composers as Bernard Herrmann and Franz Waxman. Elfman has admitted to fabricating stories about his past out of boredom, including a false birthplace of Amarillo, Texas, and parents in the United States Air Force.

In his early school days, Elfman exhibited an aptitude for science with almost no interest in music, and was even rejected from elementary school orchestra "for having no propensity for music.": 15  This would change when he switched high schools in the late 1960s and fell in with a musical crowd, who introduced him to early jazz and the work of Stravinsky and his 20th-century contemporaries.: 17

After finishing high school early with plans to travel the world, Elfman followed his brother Richard to France, where he performed violin with Jérôme Savary's Le Grand Magic Circus, an avant-garde musical theater group. He then embarked on a ten-month, self-guided tour through Africa, busking and collecting a range of West African percussion instruments until a series of illnesses forced him to return home. At this time, Richard was forming a new musical theater group in Los Angeles.

While Elfman was never officially a student at CalArts, Nyoman Wenten, an instructor in the Indonesian music department, encouraged him to attend classes and perform music there for two years.

Personal life

As a teenager, Elfman dated his classmate Kim Gordon, who would later become one of the members of the rock band Sonic Youth. He has two daughters, Lola and Mali, from his marriage to Geri Eisenmenger. Mali is a film producer and actress. Elfman and Mali collaborated on her 2011 film Do Not Disturb. On November 29, 2003, Elfman married actress Bridget Fonda. They have a son, Oliver. In 1998, Elfman scored A Simple Plan, starring Fonda. He is the uncle of actor Bodhi Elfman, who is married to actress Jenna Elfman. Elfman has been an atheist since the age of 11 or 12. According to him, he is a cynicologist.

Describing his politics during the 1980s, Elfman said, "I'm not a doomist. My attitude is always to be critical of what's around you, but not ever to forget how lucky we are. I've traveled around the world. I left thinking I was a revolutionary. I came back real right-wing patriotic. Since then, I've kind of mellowed in between." Several of his songs written for Oingo Boingo during this period satirized social politics, although Elfman stated his message was to "question, resist, challenge" and that his songs were not aligned to any one political agenda.

In 2008, Elfman expressed support for Barack Obama. For the 2020 Democratic National Convention, he scored the biographical video played ahead of Joe Biden's acceptance of the presidential nomination in the 2020 United States elections. In a series of posts on his Instagram page discussing the video, Elfman criticized Donald Trump, Richard Nixon, and the electoral college, and linked to several voter resources.

During his 18 years with Oingo Boingo, Elfman developed significant hearing damage as a result of the continuous exposure to the high noise levels involved in performing in a rock band. Afraid of worsening his condition, he decided to leave the band, saying that he would never return to that kind of performance. His impairment was so bad that he could not "even sit in a loud restaurant or bar anymore." However, he found performing in front of orchestras more tolerable, and returned several times to reprise his live performance of Jack Skellington.

Source

Danny Elfman Career

Career

Elfman was invited by his brother Richard to lead his street theatre performance art troupe The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo, returning to Los Angeles from Africa in the early 1970s.

: 22

Elfman was charged with adapting and arranging 1920s and 1930s jazz and big band music by musicians including Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Django Reinhardt, and Josephine Baker for the group, which featured up to 15 players on up to 30 instruments. In addition, he designed original works and helped build instruments unique for the company, such as an aluminum gamelan, the 'Schlitz celebrity' made from tuned beer cans, and a "junkyard orchestra" made from car parts and trash cans.

The Mystic Knights appeared on the streets and in nightclubs around Los Angeles until Richard left in 1979 to pursue filmmaking. 15 A. As a salute to the group's original concept, Richard created the film Forbidden Zone, based on the Mystic Knights' stage performances. Elfman composed the songs and his first score for the film and starred as Satan, who appears in Calloway's "Minnie the Moocher" with ensemble members as backup henchmen.

Elfman had ruled the Mystic Knights as lead singer-songwriter in 1979, limiting the group to eight players, shortening the name to Oingo Boingo, and touring as a ska-influenced new wave band before the release of Forbidden Zone. Their best success out of eight studio albums penned by Elfman in 1985 was 1985's Dead Man's Party, which featured the hit song "Weird Science" from the same film. The band also appeared in the 1986 film Back to School, for which Elfman also composed the score. In the late 1980s, Elfman shifted the band to a more guitar-oriented rock sound, which continued on their last album Boingo in 1994.

137 Elfman resigned from being on stage and in a series of five sold-out final concerts at the Universal Amphitheatre, ending on Halloween night, citing permanent hearing loss from his live performance and involvement with his film-scoring career. Elfman and Oingo Boingo guitarist Steve Bartek performed "Dead Man's Party" with an orchestra as an encore to a live-to-film concert at the Hollywood Bowl on October 31, 2015. Elfman told the audience that his appearance was "20 years to the day" of Oingo Boingo's retirement.

Elfman was invited to write the score for their first feature film Pee-wee's Big Adventure, which was a fan of Oingo Boingo, Tim Burton, and Paul Reubens. Elfman was initially apprehensive due to his lack of formal education and having never scored a studio film, but he finished his performance with a strong sense of early film music and influential film composers Nino Rota and Bernard Herrmann. Elfman referred to his first experience with his music performed by a full orchestra as one of his life's most thrilling experiences.

Following Pee Wee's Big Adventure, Elfman starred in several comedies of the late 1980s, including Back to School starring Rodney Dangerfield, Burton's Beetlejuice, and Bill Murray's Scrooged. The all-synth score to Emilio Estevez's crime drama Wisdom and the big band, blues-infused music for Martin Brest's buddy cop action film Midnight Run was among the non-comedy film Midnight Run.

Elfman's influential, Grammy-winning score for Burton's Batman in 1989 represented a dramatic stylistic shift to black, tightly orchestrated music in the romantic idiom, which would continue to his scores for Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy, Sam Raimi's Darkman, and Clive Barker's Nightbreed, which were all published in 1990.

With Batman, Elfman forged a long-running relationship with Burton, scoring only three of the director's major studio debuts. Edward Scissorhands (1990), Batman Returns (1992), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Big Fish (2003), and Alice in Wonderland (2010). In 1993, Elfman also provided the singing voice for main character Jack Skellington, as well as side characters Barl and the Clown with the Tear-Away Face. In 2005, he wrote the score and songs for Burton's Bride and became the voice of the Bonejangles, as well as providing the score, songs, and Oompa vocals for Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory the same year.

Elfman has collaborated with renowned filmmakers such as Brian De Palma, Peter Jackson, Joss Whedon, Errol Morris, Ang Lee, Richard Donner, Guillermo del Toro, David O. Russell, Jon Amiel, Joe Johnston, and Barry Sonnenfeld, in addition to regular collaborations with Burton, Raimi, and Gus Van Sant. All of his Academy Award nominations for Sonnenfeld's Men in Black, Van Sant's Good Will Hunting and Milk, and Burton's Big Fish were among their highlights.

Elfman has expanded his craft to a variety of genres, including thrillers (Dolores Claiborne, A Simple Plan, He Won't Get Far on Foot), dramas (Sommersby, The Unknown Known), and straight horror (Red Dragon, The Wolfman), as well as entries in his well-known horror genres (The Golden Army, Age of Ultron).

Elfman composed the scores for all four Men in Black films (1997–2019) and all three Fifty Shades of Grey films (2015–2018). Elfman composed Raimi's Spider-Man in 2002 and Spider-Man 2 in 2004, but Elfman did not compose the score. Danny Elfman's spider-Man theme was incorporated into Michael Giacchino's MCU film Spider-Man: No Way Home. He also wrote the score for the first film in the Mission: Impossible series in 1996, adapting Lalo Schifrin's original television series as well as composing his own.

Elfman incorporated established musical styles with his own original thematic text for several high-profile sequel and reboot projects in the 2010s, including the DC Extended Universe's Justice League, The Grinch, Dumbo, and Men in Black International.

Elfman appeared in the 2016 documentary Score, in which he appeared alongside over 50 film composers to discuss the art of film music and business executives.

The American Composers Orchestra commissioned Senada Schizophrana, Elfman's first work of original concert music, who premiered the work at Carnegie Hall on February 23, 2005. Sandy Cameron, conductor of the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, Stanford Live at Stanford University, and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, among others, premiered at Smetana Hall in Prague on June 21, 2017, and Perpetuation Quartet premiered at the Philip Glass Days And Nights Festival in Big Sur on October 10, 2019. The first performances of three works in 2022 were held in 2022. In March, a Cello Capucon was born in Vienna and was then moved to Paris in May 2022. Colin Currie's first performance in a Percussion Concerto appeared in London's Royal Festival Hall with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and later in California with Soka University of America with Pacific Symphony. Wunderkammer, a commission from the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, who toured the UK with the 20-minute project, culminated in a performance in London's Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms, with national radio and TV broadcasts.

Elfman accepted his first commission for the stage in 2008, composing the music for Twyla Tharp's Rabbit and Rogue ballet, co-commissioned by American Ballet Theatre and Orange County Performing Arts Center and premiered on June 3, 2008 at the Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center. The music for Cirque Du Soleil's Iris in 2011 is among the stage's other productions, as well as incidental music for Taylor Mac's Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus in 2019.

Elfman returned to the stage in October 2013 for the first time since his band Oingo Boingo disbanded to perform his vocal parts to a handful of The Nightmare Before Christmas songs as part of a special event titled Danny Elfman's Music from the Films of Tim Burton, which included suites of music from 15 Tim Burton films newly arranged by Elfman. The festival has since toured around the world, including in Japan, Australia, Mexico, and many European countries and the United States. Elfman has appeared near-years in a Hollywood Bowl Halloween concert starring the complete orchestra performing the Nightmare Before Christmas score live to the film projection.

Elfman will be included in Coachella 2020 with a set titled "Past, Present, and Future."

From Boingo to Batman and Beyond!"

On his Instagram page, Elfman expressed that this will not be a Oingo Boingo reunion, as well as my Boingo years, my composer years, and a few things I've been working on for the last year or so, many of which will be world premieres." In 2020, the festival was cancelled in 2020 and again in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but Elfman will continue to perform as part of the 2022 lineup.

Elfman has written scripts for The Simpsons, Tales from the Crypt, The Flash, and Desperate Housewives, which earned Elfman his first Emmy. He also created his own themes for the animated versions of Batman and Beetlejuice. Episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Amazing Stories, and Pee-wee's Playhouse, as well as the miniseries When We Rise co-composed with Chris Bacon were among the occasional serial television appearances into serial television.

He has produced music for animated shorts, including Sally Cruikshank's Face Like A Frog and Tim Burton's "Stainboy" internet series.

Elfman composed background music for Luigi Serafini's solo exhibition il Teatro Pittura at the Fondazione Mudima di Milano in 1998 and 2009, as well as the Tim Burton exhibition at MoMA in Milan, Italy.

Elfman created music for Nike, Nissan, Lincoln-Mercury, and Lincoln-Mercury in the 1990s, and he produced the music for Honda's "Power of Dreams" advertising campaign, which was the first cinema commercial to be shot in the IMAX style.

For the Hong Kong Disneyland attraction Mystic Manor, he produced the songs and provided the English-language vocals.

The MasterClass online educational series "Making Music Out of Chaos" released on October 31, 2019, presenting 21 design and career lessons from Elfman's four decades of filmmaking experience, mainly in film.

Elfman appeared on "Joe Biden," which announced Joe Biden's acceptance of the presidential nomination at the 2020 Democratic National Convention.

Elfman's "Happy" was a surprise single on Anti- Records and Epiphany Records in October 2020. From January 2021 to this day, he released "Sorry," "Love In The Time Of COVID," "Kick Me," "Opert," and a reworking of a song from Oingo Boingo, "Insects" from the album Nothing to Fear on the 11th date of each month. On June 11, Big Mess, an album, was released. Elfman performed a remix of "True" on August 11, 2021, with lead vocals shared between Elfman and Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor.

Source

EXCLUSIVE: Danny Elfman, Bridget Fonda's husband, denies charges of sexual assault

www.dailymail.co.uk, November 7, 2023
Danny Elfman, a 70-year-old composer who married Bridget Fonda in 2003, has been accused of sexually assaulting a Maryland woman from 1997 to 2002. Jane Doe XX, the unidentified woman, is suing Elfman and his company, Musica de la Muerta, for sexual assault and other things. Elfman retaliated in court papers, saying that all the charges are untru and that the lawsuit was filed "without having a valid basis in fact."

In a recent lawsuit, Bridget Fonda was photographed for the first time after husband Danny Elfman was accused of sexual assault by a second woman

www.dailymail.co.uk, October 27, 2023
Bridget Fonda has been photographed for the first time since her husband Danny Elfman was accused of sexual assault by a second woman in a recent lawsuit. On Wednesday, the former Hollywood actress, who is best known for her roles in Single White Female and Jackie Brown, was seen visiting a friend in Los Angeles. When she walked about with cups in her gloved hand, she carried a Mickey Mouse shirt, black trousers, and trainers.

EXCLUSIVE: Danny Elfman was seen for the first time after being accused of sexual assault by a second woman as he takes care of company in Beverly Hills

www.dailymail.co.uk, October 21, 2023
Danny Elfman was seen for the first time after being accused of sexual assault and sexual harassment by a second woman while stepping out in Beverly Hills on Friday. When visiting an office building that houses several law offices, the 70-year-old musician cut a casual figure. Multiple outlets first this week, including former Oingo Boingo frontman Bridget Fonda, whose reclusive wife Bridget Fonda, had no plans to return to her acting career.
Danny Elfman Tweets and Instagram Photos
19 Oct 2022

Posted by @dannyelfman on