Adolph Deutsch

Actor · Director

October 20, 1897

Biography

Adolph Sender Charles Deutsch (20 October 1897 – 1 January 1980) was a British-American composer, conductor and arranger. Born in London, England, he emigrated to the United States in 1911, and settled in Buffalo, New York. His parents, Alex (Alexander) Deutsch and Dena née Gerst, were German Jews. In 1914, Deutsch was "a Buffalo movie house musician", accompanying silent films. Deutsch began his composing career on Broadway in the 1920s and 1930s, and arranged for several American dance bands such as Paul Whiteman and Paul Ash before working for Hollywood films beginning in the late 1930s. For Broadway, he orchestrated Irving Berlin's As Thousands Cheer and George and Ira Gershwin's Pardon My English. Deutsch won Oscars for his background music for Oklahoma! (1955), and for conducting the music for Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (1954) and Annie Get Your Gun (1950).[1] He was nominated for The Band Wagon (1953) and the 1951 film version of Show Boat, for which he conducted the orchestra. For Broadway and Hollywood, he conducted, composed and arranged music, but did not write songs, not even for the Broadway shows on which he worked. In addition to his music for westerns and his conducting of the scores for musicals, Deutsch composed for films noir, including The Mask of Dimitrios (1944), The Maltese Falcon (1941), and Nobody Lives Forever (1946), as well as Little Women (the 1949 adaptation), and the Billy Wilder comedies Some Like It Hot (1959), and The Apartment (1960). His final film was Go Naked in the World.