Ron Grainer

Composer

Ron Grainer was born in Atherton, Queensland, Australia on August 11th, 1922 and is the Composer. At the age of 58, Ron Grainer biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.

Date of Birth
August 11, 1922
Nationality
Australia
Place of Birth
Atherton, Queensland, Australia
Death Date
Feb 21, 1981 (age 58)
Zodiac Sign
Leo
Profession
Composer, Film Score Composer
Ron Grainer Height, Weight, Eye Color and Hair Color

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Ron Grainer Religion, Education, and Hobbies
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Ron Grainer Career

Grainer received his teaching and performing diploma for pianoforte in December 1949. During 1950 and 1951 he began appearing in a series of solo artist radio shows for the Australian Broadcasting Commission. In August 1951 a presentation of Delius, Faure, and Milhaud compositions by Grainer on piano and Don Scott on violin was ridiculed in a newspaper review for the duo's "uncompromising disregard of mob appeal", "lack of practical concert sense", and "unrelievedly pastel colouring" set list that was "in need of a more impulsive and heartfelt spirit on the well tendered surface" having earlier said "by the time the programme ended the recital badly needed blood transfusion". By the mid-1950s Grainer had abandoned his classical repertoire and live concert work with such a determined change of attitude that he claimed in a 1964 magazine interview that he had "always loathed performing".

In 1952 Grainer left Australia for London with his wife Margot and 10-year-old stepdaughter Rel. He managed to find a three-month engagement playing piano in a nightclub along with other occasional jobs, the worst of which became a twelve-month stint with a touring Australian comedy act called "The Allen Brothers and June." This required the classically trained Grainer to be hit on the head nightly by a falling grand piano lid and then to topple over into the orchestra pit, an experience he later said was even harder to do than a day's fencing in the Australian outback.

At one stage, to pay the rent on their room, Grainer and his wife had to work as caretakers of a large block of London flats where he stoked two large boilers, morning and night, whilst Margot washed stairs and cleaned rooms.

To increase his public profile Grainer had two attempts at song contests: "England's Made of Us" (1956), an entry with lyricist David Dearlove for the First British Festival of Popular Song, which received the score of no points from the judges and, the following year, "Don't Cry Little Doll" (1957) (also written with David Dearlove), which reached fourth place in the British Eurovision entry decider heats.

Grainer's most dramatic pre-success music involvement was with Before The Sun Goes Down, a TV play which caused audience panic and questions to be raised in the British Parliament when it was shown on 20 February 1959. Taking inspiration from Orson Welles' 1938 radio drama of The War of the Worlds, the production used a similar format in which a regular programme broadcast was interrupted by a fake public service announcement. In this instance it was about a mysterious and "terrifying" satellite seen hovering over the city of London.

In 1960 Grainer achieved public recognition with his theme and incidental music for the TV series Maigret. When Maigret was given the Ivor Novello "Outstanding Composition for Film, TV or Radio" award in 1961, commissions from a wide range of genres poured in: Goon Show silliness (It's a Square World, 1961), one-off pilots (Comedy Playhouse), documentaries (Terminus, 1961), kitchen sink drama (A Kind of Loving), quirky domestic sitcoms (Steptoe and Son 1962), classic serials (Oliver Twist 1962), teen films (Some People 1962), late night satire (That Was The Week That Was, 1962), outpost angst (Station Six Sahara, 1962), ballet (The King's Breakfast, 1963), science fiction (Doctor Who, 1963), psycho killers (Night Must Fall, 1964), children's adventure stories (The Moon Spinners, 1964), patriotic biography (The Finest Hours, 1964), big-budget musicals (Robert and Elizabeth, 1964), unusual love stories (Boy Meets Girl, 1967), acclaimed dramas To Sir, with Love (1967), allegorical social commentary (The Prisoner, 1967) and crime-caper movies (Only When I Larf, 1968). Grainer also worked with the instrumental group The Eagles, who recorded a number of his themes.

Most of these projects required considerable research, group discussion, and creative team effort. They are only a small sample of work completed by Grainer from 1960 to 1968. He once indicated he felt a "trifle wistful" that so many people just associated him with the Doctor Who theme, the only tune in his extensive portfolio that had its sound dynamics realised by someone else – Delia Derbyshire of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

The time-consuming work commitments eventually contributed to the breakdown of Grainer's relationship with his wife; he and Margot divorced in 1966. Later that year, he married Jennifer Dodds, a member of the cast of Robert and Elizabeth. Their son Damian was born shortly afterwards.

In September 1968, tired of London traffic jams and worried about his intensifying eyesight problems, Grainer moved permanently to his former retreat property in southern Portugal. He and Jenny started a farm growing organic fruit and vegetables, undertaking the planting and maintaining of 1,000 peach trees.

From 1969 to 1975, Grainer composed themes and soundtracks for an average of around one TV series and one film each year.

In April 1974, the Carnation Revolution in Portugal prompted Grainer and his family to leave the country and return to England until the political climate cleared. Damian went first to boarding and then to day school. Grainer was being offered work again so he set up house in Keymer of West Sussex. In 1976, he and Jenny went through an amicable divorce as she had gone back to Portugal while he'd decided to remain in London. Over the next five years, Grainer had a second round of creativity, scoring the Emmy- and BAFTA-winning miniseries Edward & Mrs Simpson as well as Tales of the Unexpected (1979) and Rebecca (1979).

Grainer had one notable incidental music score and two TV signature tunes debut the year of his sudden illness and death from cancer on 21 February 1981.

Sunday Night Thriller, with its funeral music theme and separation of bodies credits sequence, was broadcast on 18 January 1981.

On 17 May 1981, his "All Things Bright And Beautiful" influenced ambient music for "The Sound Machine" episode of Tales of the Unexpected, accompanied a central character obsessed with "Sounds I long to hear – Songs beyond the planets."

The last of Grainer's TV themes, It Takes A Worried Man, was broadcast on 21 October 1981, and featured a closing credits film clip of the series hero gradually losing pieces of his torso and face until all that is left are his eyes.

Grainer died from a spinal tumour on 21 February 1981.

Source

Ron Grainer Awards
  • Maigret, 1961 Ivor Novello Award Outstanding Composition for Film, TV or Radio
  • Steptoe and Son, 1962 Ivor Novello Award Outstanding Composition for Film, TV or Radio
  • The Home Made Car 1963 Silver Bear Award, Short Film, Berlin International Film Festival