Elmer Bernstein

At 82 years old, Elmer Bernstein has this physical status:

Elmer Bernstein (April 4, 1922 – August 18, 2004) was an American composer and conductor best known for his film scores.

He created "some of the most iconic and memorable themes in Hollywood history" over the course of five decades, as well as scores for nearly 80 television productions.

Here are a few examples of his widely circulated and critically acclaimed works, including scores to The Magnificent Seven (1960), To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), The Great Escape (1972), Animal House (1978) Airplane. (1980), Heavy Metal (1981), Ghostbusters (1984), Capt. (1991), The Age of Innocence (1993), Wild West (1999) and Far From Heaven (2002). Bernstein received an Oscar for his contribution to Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967) and was nominated for 14 Oscars in total.

He has also been nominated for two Grammy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and an Emmy Award.

Early life

Bernstein was born in New York City, the son of Selma (née Feinstein, 1901-1901), and Edward Bernstein (1896-1968), both from Austria-Hungary, and Selma (2001).

He was not related to Leonard Bernstein, the celebrated composer and conductor, though they were friends. They were distinguished from each other in the field of professional music by the use of the names Bernstein West (Elmer) and Bernstein East (Leonard), based on their bases of operations: East for New York City, West for Los Angeles. They also pronounced their surnames differently. Elmer pronounced his name "BERN-steen" while Leonard used the term "BERN-styne."

Bernstein also earned several awards for his painting during his childhood as a dancer and an actor in the latter case, playing Caliban in The Tempest on Broadway. He attended Manhattan's liberal Walden School and gravitated toward music. Henriette Michelson, a Juilliard tutor who coached him throughout his entire career as a pianist, gave him a piano scholarship at the age of 12. She took him to participate in some of composer Aaron Copland's experiments, who was encouraging and select Israel Citkowitz as a mentor for the young child.

Elmer was recruited into the United States Army Air Forces during the World War II period, where he composed music for the Armed Forces Radio.

Elmer Bernstein's music has some stylistic echoes of Copland's music, particularly sections of Big Jake in the Gregory Peck film Amazing Grace and Chuck's Amazing Grace and Chuck's 1959 film version of Erskine Caldwell's novel God's Little Acre.

He had a lifelong passion for a much broader range of the arts as he rated The Story on Page One in 1959, he considered becoming a novelist and asked Clifford Odets, the film's screenwriter, to teach him how to write fiction.

Personal life and death

Bernstein was married three times, first to Rhoda Federstein. Their marriages spanned 1942 to 1946. Pearl Glusman, who wed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on December 21, 1946, was Bernstein's second wife. Bernstein married Eve Adamson after the couple's divorce in 1965. They remained together for 39 years until his death.

Bernstein, a founder of the Triad Stable Thoroughbred racing association, was a member of a music club in the 1960s. Robert Helfer, Robert Helfer, and Morton Lipton, the wife of the Triad Stable's trainer, were among his coworkers.

In the 1990s, the Bernsteins lived in Hope Ranch, a Santa Barbara, California suburb. Bernstein died of cancer in Ojai, California, later in life. Bernstein died after a long illness, according to his publicist Cathy Mouton. Emilie and Elizabeth, his two sons, Peter and Gregory Bernstein, survived him from his earlier marriage to Pearl Glusman, and by five grandchildren.

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Career

Bernstein composed the theme songs or other recordings for more than 200 films and TV shows, including The Magnificent Seven, The Great Escape, The Ten Commandments (1956), The Man with the Golden Arm, To Kill a Mockingbird, Robatics, and Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965), as well as the National Geographic television specials.

The Magnificent Seven's theme is also familiar to television viewers, as it was used in Marlboro cigarettes' commercials. Bernstein also provided the score to several of Ray and Charles Eames' short films.

Bernstein co-founded va Records, an American record label headquartered in Los Angeles, with Fred Astaire, Jackie Mills, and Tommy Wolf in 1961.

Bernstein composed the scores for two Broadway musicals, How Now, Dow Jones, with lyricist Carolyn Leigh in 1967 and Merlin, with lyricist Don Black in 1983.

Bernstein's tunes have since earned a long history in American college sports history. Paul Dietzel, the head coach of University of South Carolina, wrote new lyrics to "Step to the Rear," from How Now, Dow Jones. The school's battle song, "The Fighting Gamecocks Lead the Way," has been the school's battle song ever since.

Bernstein, along with many other Los Angeles artists, were censured during the McCarthy era of the early 1950s. When it was discovered that he had written some music reviews for a Communist newspaper, Bernstein was summoned by the House Un-American Activities Committee. He found himself writing music for films such as Robot Monster and Cat-Women of the Moon, a step down from his earlier Sudden Fear and Saturday's Hero.

John Landis grew up near Bernstein and befriended him through his children. Bernstein's request that Bernstein compose the music for National Lampoon's Animal House years later, despite the studio's resistances. Bernstein's score, playing it straight as if the comedic Delta frat characters were actually heroes, would have pushed the plot even further, according to Bernstein.

The film's opening theme is based on a small inversion of a secondary theme from Brahms' Academic Festival Overture. Bernstein accepted the role and it sparked a second wave in his career, where he continued to write for high-profile comedies such as Ghostbusters, Stripes, and Airplane! The Blues Brothers, as well as the majority of Landis' films over the next 15 years, including An American Werewolf in London, Trading Places, and Michael Jackson's "Thriller" music video.

Bernstein adapted Bernard Herrmann's original score to the new film when Martin Scorsese revealed that he was re-making Cape Fear. Bernstein jumped at the chance to work with Scorsese as well as pay tribute to Herrmann. Scorsese and Bernstein co-produced two more films, The Age of Innocence (1993) and Bringing Out the Dead (1999). Bernstein had conducted Herrmann's original unused score for Alfred Hitchcock's 1966 Torn Curtain.

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