Daniel White(1912-1997)

Daniel White was born on May 22, 1912, in Malakoff, a suburb of Paris, France. His ancestors were Scottish. White grew up in West Yorkshire around the moors. His family moved to Paris while Daniel was still young and he was initially expected to enter the family textile business. After the company went under, White was fortunately able to pursue his interest in music instead.

During World War II he worked as an interpreter with the British army and was almost killed during the evacuation of Dunkirk. Following the war, Daniel played piano in nightclubs and cabarets. He composed his first film soundtrack in 1947. He wrote the jingles for numerous 1950s TV commercials, which included spots for Polo and Kit-E-Kat that were shown on British television.

Daniel composed the scores for many movies made by maverick Spanish exploitation filmmaker Jesús Franco, starting with La mano de un hombre muerto (1962). In addition, he also did the music for pictures made by directors Pierre Chevalier and León Klimovsky. Moreover, White recorded a large volume of albums under several pseudonyms; said albums include comedy records as Emile Doryphore, rock records as Guy Forlane, and organ music as Virginie Morgane.

An incredibly fast and prolific musician, White was known for recording 12 tracks for an album in a single day. His favorite composers were Debussy and Ravel. Daniel was especially fond of composing for the human voice. Besides composing scores for Franco, White also acted in a handful of Franco's films -- he was usually cast as a police inspector -- and even worked as a production assistant on a few features for Franco during his extremely busy early-1970s period in Portugal. Daniel White died at age 85 on May 24, 1997.