William Axt (April 19, 1888 – February 13, 1959) was an American composer of nearly two hundred film scores.
Life and career
Born in New York City, Axt graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in The Bronx and studied at the National Conservatory of Music of America.[citation needed] He earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Chicago in 1922.[1] He studied in Berlin under Xaver Scharwenka.[2]
Axt made his American debut as a conductor on December 28, 1910.[2]
He served as an assistant conductor for the Hammerstein Grand Opera Company and was a musical director for the Capitol Theatre in Manhattan before joining the music department at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1929.[citation needed]
Axt retired from the film industry to raise cattle and breed horses in Laytonville, California.[citation needed] He died in Ukiah, California, and had at least one son (Edward).[3]
Selected filmography
- Theodora (1921; with Erno Rapee)[4]
- The Prisoner of Zenda (1922)
- Greed (1924)
- The Big Parade (1925; with David Mendoza)[5]
- Ben-Hur (1925; with David Mendoza)[6]
- The Merry Widow (1925)[7]
- La Bohème (1926)[7]
- Don Juan (1926; with David Mendoza)[8][9]
- The Scarlet Letter (1926)[7]
- Camille (1927)
- The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927; with David Mendoza)[10]
- Our Dancing Daughters (1928)
- Show People (1928)[7]
- The Trail of '98 (1928)[7]
- White Shadows in the South Seas (1928)[7]
- A Woman of Affairs (1928)[7]
- The Duke Steps Out (1929)[7]
- The Flying Fleet (1929)[7]
- The Kiss (1929)[7]
- The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1929)
- Madame X (1929)
- Our Modern Maidens (1929)[7]
- Where East Is East (1929)
- A Free Soul (1931)[7]
- Private Lives (1931)
- Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise) (1931)
- Faithless (1932)[7]
- Grand Hotel (1932)
- The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932)[11]
- The Washington Masquerade (1932)[7]
- The Wet Parade(1932)[7]
- Broadway to Hollywood (1933)[7]
- Clear All Wires! (1933)[12]
- Dinner at Eight (1933)[13]
- Eskimo (1933)[14]
- Gabriel Over the White House (1933)[7]
- Hell Below (1933)[15]
- Penthouse (1933)[3]
- The Secret of Madame Blanche (1933)[7]
- Sons of the Desert (1933)
- Storm at Daybreak (1933)[7]
- Reunion in Vienna (1933)[3]
- Forsaking All Others (1934)[7]
- Manhattan Melodrama (1934)[7]
- Men in White (1934)
- Operator 13 (1934)[7]
- Sadie McKee (1934)[7]
- The Thin Man (1934)[7]
- Tarzan and His Mate (1934)[7]
- A Wicked Woman (1934)[7]
- You Can't Buy Everything (1934)
- Buried Loot (1935), short
- Rendezvous (1935)[3]
- David Copperfield (1935)
- Libeled Lady (1936)[7]
- Tarzan Escapes (1936)[7]
- We Went to College (1936)[16]
- Beg, Borrow or Steal (1937)[7]
- London by Night (1937)
- Parnell (1937)[3]
- Under Cover of Night (1937)[7]
- Everybody Sing (1938)[7]
- Woman Against Woman (1938)[7]
- Yellow Jack (1938)[7]
- Sergeant Madden (1939)[7]
- Tarzan Finds a Son! (1939)[7]
- Tell No Tales (1939)[7]
- Untamed (1940)
- Little Nellie Kelly (1940)
- Tarzan's Secret Treasure (1941)[7]
- Madame Curie (1943)
References
- ^ "Music Notes". The New York Times. October 13, 1922. p. 14. Retrieved February 19, 2021.
- ^ a b "Wm. Axt Conducts 'Naughty Marietta'". The New York Times. December 29, 1910. p. 16. Retrieved February 19, 2021.
- ^ a b c d e "Film Musician William L. Axt Dies at Ukiah". The Los Angeles Times. February 14, 1959. p. 9. Retrieved February 19, 2021.
- ^ ""Theodora" Film at the Shubert". The Boston Globe. November 22, 1921. p. 7. Retrieved February 19, 2021.
- ^ May, Richard P. (2005). "Restoring "The Big Parade"". The Moving Image: The Journal of the Association of Moving Image Archivists. 5 (2). University of Minnesota Press: 142. doi:10.1353/mov.2005.0033. ISSN 1532-3978. JSTOR 41167213. S2CID 192076406. Retrieved February 19, 2021.
- ^ ""Ben Hur" Pictured at the Colonial". The Boston Globe. February 23, 1926. p. 18. Retrieved February 19, 2021.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak "William Axt". British Film Institute. Retrieved February 19, 2021.
- ^ Anderson, Gillian B. (1987). "The Presentation of Silent Films, or, Music as Anaesthesia". The Journal of Musicology. 5 (2). University of California Press: 292. doi:10.2307/763853. ISSN 0277-9269. JSTOR 763853. Retrieved February 19, 2021.
- ^ Platte, Nathan (2011). "Dream Analysis: Korngold, Mendelssohn, and Musical Adaptations in Warner Bros.' A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935)". 19th-Century Music. 34 (3): 229. doi:10.1525/ncm.2011.34.3.211. ISSN 0148-2076. JSTOR 10.1525/ncm.2011.34.3.211. Retrieved February 19, 2021.
- ^ McCormick, Rick (2020). "Sex and Sophistication: Comedies and Operettas, 1923–34". Sex, Politics, and Comedy: The Transnational Cinema of Ernst Lubitsch. Indiana University Press. p. 167. ISBN 978-0-253-04834-9. JSTOR j.ctv1g809c7.8. Retrieved 19 February 2021.
- ^ Yang, Mina (2001). "Orientalism and the Music of Asian Immigrant Communities in California, 1924-1945". American Music. 19 (4): 408–9. doi:10.2307/3052418. ISSN 0734-4392. JSTOR 3052418. Retrieved February 19, 2021.
- ^ "[Untitled]". The Boston Globe. May 13, 1933. p. 10. Retrieved February 19, 2021.
- ^ "Film and Video Programs". MoMA. 2 (6): 19. 1999. ISSN 0893-0279. JSTOR 4420375. Retrieved 19 February 2021.
- ^ Henderson, Clara (2001). ""When Hearts Beat like Native Drums:" Music and the Sexual Dimensions of the Notions of "Savage" and "Civilized" in Tarzan and His Mate, 1934". Africa Today. 48 (4): 98. ISSN 0001-9887. JSTOR 4187456. Retrieved February 19, 2021.
- ^ "[Untitled]". The Boston Globe. March 20, 1933. p. 17. Retrieved February 19, 2021.
- ^ Barham, Jeremy (2011). "Recurring Dreams and Moving Images: The Cinematic Appropriation of Schumann's Op. 15, No. 7". 19th-Century Music. 34 (3): 284. doi:10.1525/ncm.2011.34.3.271. ISSN 0148-2076. JSTOR 10.1525/ncm.2011.34.3.271. Retrieved February 19, 2021.
External links
- William Axt at IMDb