Lela Simone(1907-1991)
- Music Department
- Additional Crew
- Soundtrack
Lela Simone was a solo pianist with the MGM studio orchestra, joining
MGM on a part-time basis in 1937 and fulltime by 1939. She had fled her
native Germany in 1933, where she had been a child piano prodigy,
giving concerts at age sixteen. At MGM she became part of "the Freed
Unit" (with Arthur Freed, Roger Edens and Conrad Salinger), known on
the lot as The Royal Family. It was Simone who assembled the first
complete soundtrack recording for MGM, "Till The Clouds Roll By".
Simone also worked as vocal coach, piano instructor, music editor, and
other functions in the MGM music department, finally resigning after
her work for "Gigi" (1958) was completed.
