Alfred Newman

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This article is about the composer. For the mascot of Mad magazine, see Alfred E. Neuman.

Alfred Newman (March 17, 1900 – February 17, 1970), whose birth year is commonly mistaken for 1901, was a major American composer of music for films. He received 45 Academy Award nominations (a record in the music categories, now shared with John Williams), winning 9 times; in 1940 he was nominated for 4 different films. He also composed the familiar fanfare which accompanies the studio logo for 20th Century Fox, where he headed the music department. He was active until the end of his life, scoring Airport shortly before his death.

Between 1930 and 1970, he wrote music for over 200 films of every imaginable type, including a score for the newsreel made from the World War II footage of the Battle of Midway. Among his major film scores (and adaptations of other composers' scores) are:

1933 - State Fair (non-musical version)
1937 - You Only Live Once
1937 - The Prisoner of Zenda
1938 - Alexander's Ragtime Band (Academy Award) (adaptation, the music was by Irving Berlin)
1939 - Gunga Din
1939 - Wuthering Heights
1939 - The Hunchback of Notre Dame
1940 - The Mark of Zorro
1940 - Tin Pan Alley (Academy Award) (adaptation)
1941 - How Green Was My Valley
1943 - The Song of Bernadette (Academy Award)
1943 - My Friend Flicka
1944 - The Keys of the Kingdom (Academy Award nomination for best musical score)
1945 - State Fair (adaptation only; this was the musical version by Rodgers and Hammerstein)
1947 - Captain from Castile
1947 - Mother Wore Tights (adaptation) (Academy Award)
1947 - Gentleman's Agreement
1949 - Twelve O'Clock High
1950 - All About Eve
1952 - The Prisoner of Zenda
1952 - The Snows of Kilimanjaro
1952 - With a Song in My Heart (adaptation only; this musical contained songs by several composers, but Newman was not one of them) (Academy Award)
1953 - "How to Marry a Millionaire"
1953 - The Robe
1953 - Call Me Madam (adaptation; the music was by Irving Berlin) (Academy Award)
1954 - Demetrius and the Gladiators
1955 - A Man Called Peter
1955 - Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing (Academy Award)
1956 - Anastasia
1956 - The King and I (adaptation) {Academy Award)
1957 - April Love (adaptation)
1958 - A Certain Smile
1959 - The Diary of Anne Frank (Academy Award nomination for best musical score)
1962 - The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
1962 - How the West Was Won (Academy Award nomination for best musical score)
1965 - The Greatest Story Ever Told (Academy Award nomination for best musical score)
1967 - Camelot (adaptation} (Academy Award)
1968 - Firecreek
1970 - Airport

He married Martha Louis(1920 - 2005), née Montgomery, former actress and Goldwyn Girl, and they had five children.

He was the head of a family of major Hollywood film composers: His brother Lionel Newman scored three dozen films and several TV series, adapting and conducting scores for hundreds of other films. His brother Emil Newman scored over 50 films. His son David Newman has scored over 70 films, including Hoffa, Galaxy Quest, The Nutty Professor (1996 film), The War of the Roses, and Ice Age. His son Thomas Newman has scored over 50 films, including Finding Nemo, The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption, Road to Perdition, and American Beauty. His nephew Randy Newman is noted not only for his film work but also for a series of popular albums as a singer/songwriter. His great-nephew, Joey Newman (Lionel's grandson) is a third generation composer who has scored a number of films, television shows and video games.