Alfred Newman

Until the morning of January 31, 2006, when John Williams received his 44th and 45th Oscar nominations, Newman held the record for the most Oscar-nominated composer/conductor ever, and he won a record nine Oscars in all.

Pictured on one of six 33¢ USA commemorative postage stamps in the Legends of American Music series, honoring Hollywood Composers, issued September 21, 1999. Issued in panes of 20 stamps. Others honored in the set were Max Steiner, Dimitri Tiomkin, Bernard Herrmann, Franz Waxman and Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

In 1992, Ken Darby, the choral supervisor of The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), wrote "Hollywood Holyland", the chronicle of his experience on the production and what he felt was the butchering of Alfred Newman's score in the final film.

Alfred Newman passed away on February 17, 1970, a month away from what would have been his 69th birthday on March 17.

He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 1708 Vine Street in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.

He is known for his work on All About Eve (1950), Airport (1970) and How the West Was Won (1962). He was married to Martha Montgomery and Mary Lou Dix.

He was one of the few arranger/conductors to work on two film versions of the same musical, "State Fair" (State Fair (1945), State Fair (1962)).

In 1940, he achieved the astonishing feat of garnering four Oscar nominations for four different films.

Nominated for an Academy Award 20 years in succession, from 1938 to 1957. This includes a nine year stretch from 1938 to 1946 in which he was nominated for at least two different movie scores in each of those years.

At the instigation of Irving Berlin, who first made the suggestion to the head of United Artists, Joseph M. Schenck, Newman was invited to Hollywood in 1930 to arrange and score Berlin's comedy Reaching for the Moon (1930). He was then signed by United Artists (working primarily for Samuel Goldwyn) to a seven-year contract, from 1931 to 1938. Producer Darryl F. Zanuck became so enamored with his work, that he coaxed him into joining the newly formed 20th Century Fox. His subsequent tenure at Fox, both as composer and as musical director, spanned the years 1938 to 1959. During this time, he became the studio's most prodigious Academy Award winner (and was nominated every single year apart from 1958). From 1940, until his departure, he held the title of general music director. He was succeeded in that capacity by his younger brother Lionel Newman.

Child prodigy by the age of eight. He derived his first income as an accompanist on piano in vaudeville, and in the orchestral pits of picture theatres. Newman worked his way up the ladder, conducting his first orchestra by age 17, consequently being tagged the boy conductor. By 1917, he had made his way to New York, conducting musicals on Broadway, beginning with "George White's Scandals".

Alfred Newman was born on March 17, 1901 in New Haven, Connecticut, USA.