Born May 10, 1888 in Vienna, Austria, Max(well) Steiner was a child prodigy who conducted his first operetta when he was twelve and became a full-time professional, either composing, arranging, or conducting, when he was fifteen. He wrote and conducted the operetta, The Beautiful Greek Girl which led to opportunities to conduct other shows in various cities around the world, including Moscow and Hamburg. He was invited to London to conduct Lehar’s The Merry Widow and stayed for 8 years conducting theater productions and symphonies. With the outbreak of World-War I in 1914, he was interned as an enemy alien. Through his friend, the Duke of Westminster, he was given exit papers to go to America, but his money was impounded. He arrived in New York in December 1914 with only $32 to his name.

Steiner quickly acquired work in New York as a musical director, arranger and orchestrator. In 1919, he accepted an offer to go to work for RKO in their musical department. It didn’t take long for him to be named director of that department. His first credited score was for 1930’s Dixiana, quickly followed by the Oscar-winning Cimarron and Katharine Hepburn’s early films including A Bill of Divorcement and Little Women, but it was 1933’s King Kong that put him on the map.

Called the “father of film music”, Steiner composed 111 scores in the six years he worked for RKO from 1929-1935, 36 of them in 1934 and 37 in 1935. Oscars for scoring were first given at the 1934 Academy Awards. He was nominated that year for The Gay Divorcée and The Lost Patrol and at least once for every year thereafter through 1950 except for 1937. He was subsequently nominated again in 1952, 1954 and 1955, earning a total of 24 nominations overall. He won three times, for 1935’s The Informer, 1942’s Now, Voyager and 1944’s Since You Went Away.

Steiner was under contract to Warner Bros. from 1936-1953 with occasional loan-outs to David O. Selznick. Despite the lack of a contract, Steiner continued working for Warner Bros. for another 12 years. It was during this thirty-year period that he produced most of his best known works, which in addition to his Oscar wins included The Life of Emile Zola, Jezebel, Gone with the Wind, The Letter, Now, Voyager, Casablanca, Watch on the Rhine, The Corn Is Green, Mildred Pierce, The Big Sleep, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Johnny Belinda, The Glass Menagerie, The Caine Mutiny (for Columbia), Battle Cry, The Searchers, All Mine to Give (for RKO), The Hanging Tree, A Summer Place , The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, Ice Palace and Spencer’s Mountain.

Max Steiner was married four times and had one son, Ronald, whose mother was third wife, harpist Louise Kofs. Ronald, a US soldier, stationed in Hawaii, committed suicide at the age of 22. Max Steiner died of congestive heart failure on December 28, 1971. He is entombed in the Great Mausoleum at Forrest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California, near famous film composers Alfred Newman, Isham Jones, Rudolf Friml, Carrie Jacobs Bond, and many of the stars of the films for whom he composed his scores.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

KING KONG, directed by Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack (1933)

Steiner’s score for King Kong set the standard for film music for many years to come. In addition to composing, Steiner conducted an 86-piece orchestra which RKO studio heads believed enhanced the film dramatically. Nearing the end of his RKO contract, he would nevertheless continue to compose scores for numerous RKO films including the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals, The Gay Divorcée, Top Hat, Of Human Bondage and the John Ford films, The Lost Patrol and The Informer, winning his first Oscar for The Informer.

GONE WITH THE WIND, directed by Victor Fleming (1939)

Now under contract to RKO, Steiner composed his most famous score on loan-out to David O. Selznick. “Tara’s Theme” alone would have made this an enduring classic score, but there is so much more to it than just its principal theme. Steiner would earn his sixth and seventh Oscar nominations for two 1939 films, the Bette Davis starrer, Dark Victory and of course, this. He would lose to Herbert Stothart for The Wizard of Oz, but would later win his third Oscar for Selznick’s 1944 film, Since You Went Away. In the interim he would win a second Oscar for Now, Voyager.

NOW, VOYAGER, directed by Irving Rapper (1942)

After Steiner’s death, Charles Gerhardt conducted the National Philharmonic Orchestra in an RCA Victor album of highlights from Steiner’s career under the title Now Voyager with the theme from this film the album’s principal selling point. Steiner was Bette Davis’s favorite composer. She credited the success of many of her films including Of Human Bondage, Jezebel, Dark Victory, The Old Maid, The Letter and The Corn Is Green, as well as this, for their success. Davis and Gladys Cooper were nominated for Oscars, but Steiner was the film’s only winner.

CASABLANCA, directed by Michael Curtiz (1943)

No, Steiner didn’t compose “As Time Goes By”, but he did compose the film’s complex score within which Ingrid Bergman asked Dooley Wilson to play it for her. During the next ten years Steiner would compose other complex scores, adding immeasurably to the success of such films as Mildred Pierce, The Big Sleep, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Johnny Belinda, The Fountainhead and The Glass Menagerie and their stars – Joan Crawford, Humphrey Bogart, Jane Wyman and Gary Cooper – just as he had Katharine Hepburn, Bette Davis and Ingrid Bergman in earlier years.

A SUMMER PLACE, directed by Delmer Daves (1959)

The theme from A Summer Place was a best-selling record, and is still being used as background in films today. Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue became overnight sensations as the young lovers for whom the theme was composed while Dorothy McGuire, Richard Egan, Arthur Kennedy, Constance Ford and Beulah Bondi supplied the dramatic heft, but it was Steiner’s score and that theme that was the film’s real star. Steiner die din 1971, but his music remains as thrilling as ever it was in the days when King Kong, Gone with the Wind and Casablanca were new.

MAX STEINER AND OSCAR

• The Gay Divorcée (1934) nominated – Best Score
• The Lost Patrol (1934) – nominated – Best Score
• The Informer (1935) – Oscar – Best Score
• The Garden of Allah (1936) – nominated – Best Score
• Jezebel (1938) – nominated – Best Scoring
• Dark Victory (1939) – nominated – Best Original Score
• Gone with the Wind (1939) – nominated – Best Original Score
• The Letter (1940) – nominated – Best Original Score
• Sergeant York (1941) – nominated – Best Scoring of a Dramatic Picture
• Now, Voyager (1942) – Oscar – Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
• Casablanca (1943) – nominated – Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
• The Adventures of Mark Twain (1944) – nominated – Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
• Since You Went Away (1944) – Oscar – Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
• Rhapsody in Blue (1945) – nominated – Best Scoring of a Musical Picture
• Night and Day (1946) – nominated – Best Scoring of a Musical Picture
• Life with Father (1947) – nominated – Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
• My Wild Irish Rose (1947) – nominated – Best Scoring of a Musical Picture
• Johnny Belinda (1948) – nominated – Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
• Beyond the Forest (1949) – nominated – Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
• The Flame and the Arrow (1950) – nominated – Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
• The Jazz Singer (1952) – nominated – Best Scoring of a Musical Picture
• The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima (1952) – nominated – Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
• The Caine Mutiny (1954) – nominated – Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture
• Battle Cry (1955) – nominated – Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture