Summing up: this series was inspired by a document I found titled “Composers and Prices as of October 1, 1968,” which was in the papers of an A-list director of that era who was considering a composer for an upcoming prestige project (which was ultimately filmed and released without an original score). The composers were listed by their asking price -- I have ranked them from 1 to 17, based on their fees, and Parts One and Two featured the composers ranked 6 to 17, with the list reprinted at the bottom of this column. The specifics of each composers' age, credits and awards in these columns as are of October 1, 1968, while the box-office figures are generally approximate and incomplete, since the studios in that era did not provide up-to-date movie grosses the way they do today.
5A. JOHN BARRY
AGE: 34
BIRTHPLACE: York, England
2 OSCARS
1 EMMY NOMINATION
4 GRAMMY NOMINATIONS
RELATIONSHIPS: Bryan Forbes, Richard Lester, Harry Saltzman & Albert R. Broccoli
TYPECAST IN: Espionage
TOP BOX-OFFICE HITS:
1. Thunderball--27 (U.S. rentals in millions)
2. Goldfinger--22
3. You Only Live Twice--18
5. From Russia with Love--9
6. Born Free--3
7. The Chase--2
8. The Ipcress File--1.75
9. Petulia--1.6
10. The Quiller Memorandum--1.5
WHAT’S NEXT: The Lion in Winter
Barry would go on to win his third Oscar for that year’s The Lion in Winter. Though he nearly lost his life to a major health crisis in the late 1980s, he maintained a remarkable career, earning his fourth and fifth Oscars for scoring Best Picture winners Out of Africa and Dances With Wolves (which almost makes up for the Academy never nominating a note of his 11 James Bond scores and many Bond songs). His final feature score was 2002’s Enigma, and he died in 2011 at the age of 77.
AGE: 39
BIRTHPLACE: Berlin, Germany
4 OSCARS, 12 NOMINATIONS
1 EMMY NOMINATION
4 GRAMMYS, 15 NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Gigi, Elmer Gantry, My Fair lady
RELATIONSHIPS: Billy Wilder
TYPECAST IN: Comedy, Musicals
TOP BOX-OFFICE HITS:
1. My Fair Lady--30
2. Thoroughly Modern Millie--14
3. Irma La Douce--12
4. Gigi--7
5. Elmer Gantry--5
6. Goodbye, Charlie--3
7. Kim--2.8
8. Bells Are Ringing--2.7
9. One, Two, Three --2.38
10. Designing Woman--2.25
Silk Stockings--2.25
After his widely publicized experience of being replaced on his then-wife Mia Farrow’s 1971 thriller See No Evil, Previn gave up composing for film. He worked as an adaptor/conductor for two Norman Jewison films, Jesus Christ Superstar and Rollerball, but for the last few decades has focused on his concert work, including his opera A Streetcar Named Desire. This April he celebrated his 88th birthday. (Previn’s ranking on this list was based on his asking price for original scores – his asking price for musicals was twice as much, and the document featured an asterisked note “If he will do one!”).
AGE: 46
BIRTHPLACE: New York City, New York
1 OSCAR, 9 NOMINATIONS
1 EMMY
2 GRAMMY NOMINATIONS
1 TONY NOMINATION
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: The Ten Commandments, To Kill a Mockingbird
RELATIONSHIPS: George Roy Hill, Robert Mulligan, John Sturges
TYPECAST IN: Adventure, Westerns
TOP BOX-OFFICE HITS:
1. The Ten Commandments--40
2. Hawaii--16
3. The Carpetbaggers--15
4. Thoroughly Modern Millie--14
5. The Silencers--7.35
6. To Kill a Mockingbird--7.2
7. The Sons of Katie Elder--6
8. The Great Escape--5.5
9. From the Terrace--5.2
10. Hud--5.0
WHAT’S NEXT: I Love You, Alice B. Toklas
Bernstein would go on to receive five more Oscar nominations, but didn’t win again after 1967’s Thoroughly Modern Millie. Like many of the top composers of his generation, he found it harder to get feature work during the 1970s and balanced his film output with television, but a string of hit comedies in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, including collaborations with directors John Landis and Ivan Reitman, led to a much-deserved career resurgence. His partnership with Martin Scorsese yielded a nomination for one of his last great works, The Age of Innocence, and his final nomination was for a brilliant piece of composer casting, for Todd Haynes’ ‘50s-style romantic melodrama Far from Heaven. He died in August 2004 at the age of 84, following soon after the losses of Jerry Goldsmith and David Raksin.
AGE: 47
BIRTHPLACE: Vienna, Austria
1 OSCAR, 4 NOMINATIONS
2 GRAMMYS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: The Defiant Ones, Judgment at Nuremberg, Ship of Fools
RELATIONSHIPS: Stanley Kramer
TYPECAST IN: Period drama
TOP BOX-OFFICE HITS:
1. It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World--19
2. Exodus--8
3. On the Beach--5
Judgment at Nuremberg--5
5. The Young Philadelphians--2
6. Inherit the Wind--1
Gold received one more Oscar nomination, for his Secret of Santa Vittoria score, and continued to work on and off with its director, Stanley Kramer, scoring his final film, 1979’s The Runner Stumbles. He had a few feature and TV scoring credits in the 1980s and died in 1999, at the age of 77.
5E. QUINCY JONES
AGE: 35
BIRTHPLACE: Chicago, Illinois
2 OSCAR NOMINATIONS
1 GRAMMY, 14 NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEE: In the Heat of the Night
RELATIONSHIPS: Sidney Lumet
TYPECAST IN: Thrillers
TOP BOX-OFFICE HITS:
1. In the Heat of the Night--10
2. In Cold Blood--5.6
3. For Love of Ivy--5.07
4. Walk, Don’t Run--4
5. The Pawnbroker--2
6. Mirage--1.5
7. The Slender Thread--1.0
WHAT’S NEXT: The Split
Jones slowed down his feature output after the early 1970s, and received Oscar nominations for The Wiz adaptation and The Color Purple’s original score (he was also nominated as one of The Color Purple’s producers). In the non-film world, he continued to be and remains a music legend, having his greatest commercial success with his production of Michael Jackson’s 1982 album Thriller, which remains the best-selling album of all time. This March he celebrated his 84th birthday, and one of his seven children is actress-screenwriter Rashida Jones.
AGE: 57
BIRTHPLACE: Chester, Pennsylvania
10 OSCAR NOMINATIONS
3 GRAMMY NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: A Streetcar Named Desire, The Rose Tattoo, Cleopatra, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
TYPECAST IN: Drama, epics, films based on plays
TOP BOX-OFFICE HITS:
1. Cleopatra--26
2. Spartacus--14.6
3. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?--14.0
4. I’ll Cry Tomorrow--6
5. A Streetcar Named Desire--4.75
6. Desiree--4.5
7. The Rose Tattoo--4.2
The Devil’s Brigade--4.2
9. The Bad Seed--4.1
The Misfits--4.1
WHAT’S NEXT: The Shoes of the Fisherman
Feature projects came fewer for North in the 1970s and 1980s, while for the Academy he was “always a bridesmaid, never a bride,” a regular nominee but never a winner of a “competitive” Oscar. On March 24, 1986, he became the first composer to win the Honorary Oscar, awarded to North “in recognition of his brilliant artistry in the creation of memorable music for a host of distinguished motion pictures.” His final score was for the Czech drama The Last Butterfly; he died in 1991 at the age of 80.
AGE: 39
BIRTHPLACE: Los Angeles, California
3 OSCAR NOMINATIONS
2 EMMY NOMINATIONS
1 GRAMMY NOMINATION
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Lilies of the Field, The Sand Pebbles
RELATIONSHIPS: John Frankenheimer, Franklin J. Schaffner
TYPECAST IN: Action-adventure, science-fiction, Westerns
TOP BOX-OFFICE HITS:
1. Planet of the Apes--15
2. The Sand Pebbles--13
3. The Blue Max--8
4. Von Ryan’s Express--7.7
5. Our Man Flint--7.2
6. A Patch of Blue--6.9
7. The Detective--6.5
8. Bandolero! --5.5
9. In Like Flint--5.0
10. In Harm’s Way--4.25
WHAT’S NEXT: The Illustrated Man
It’s hard to sum up the amazing 35 years of film and TV music that Jerry Goldsmith gave us after 1968 -- Patton, Chinatown, an Oscar for The Omen, Alien, five Star Trek scores, his collaborations with directors like Michael Crichton, Joe Dante and Paul Verhoeven… In 1968 he gave us Planet of the Apes, one of the game-changing works of film music, and he continued to challenge himself and amaze us for the rest of his career. He died in 2004 at the age of 75; his son Joel was a talented film and television composer in his own right, and died too soon in 2012 at the age of 54.
AGE: 61
BIRTHPLACE: Budapest, Hungary
3 OSCARS, 17 NOMINATIONS
1 GRAMMY NOMINATION
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, Spellbound, Quo Vadis, Ivanhoe, Julius Caesar, Ben-Hur
RELATIONSHIPS: Billy Wilder
TYPECAST IN: Biblical stories, epics
TOP BOX-OFFICE HITS:
1. Ben-Hur--38
2. Quo Vadis--12.5
3. El Cid--12
4. The Green Berets--8.7
5. King of Kings--8.0
6. The VIPs--7
7. Ivanhoe--6
8. Spellbound--4.9
9. Knights of the Round Table--4.5
10. The Lost Weekend--4.3
Rozsa would only score a few more features after 1968, but he never lost his melodic and dramatic gifts, and later works included such wonderful scores as The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Providence and Time After Time (the latter three were all short-listed for Oscar nominations). His final feature, the noir comedy Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, was an inspired piece of composer casting and the perfect capper for his 45 years in film music. He died in 1995 at the age of 88.
AGE: 54
BIRTHPLACE: Rome, Italy
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Room at the Top, Sons and Lovers
TYPECAST IN: Biblical epics, romance
TOP BOX-OFFICE HITS:
1. The Vikings--6
2. Solomon and Sheba--5.5
3. A Farewell to Arms--5.0
4. The Barefoot Contessa--3
5. Barabbas--2.85
6. Alexander the Great--2.5
One Million Years B.C.--2.5
8. Light in the Piazza--1.2
WHAT’S NEXT: Summit, Commandos
Despite the success of One Million Years B.C., he scored few non-Italian films for the remainder of his career (and are When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth and Creatures the World Forgot technically “English-language films?”). He seemed to largely retire from film scoring after the mid-1970s, and he died in 2002 at the age of 88.
AGE: 72
BIRTHPLACE: Kremenchuk, Ukraine
4 OSCARS, 22 NOMINATIONS
2 GRAMMY NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Lost Horizon, You Can’t Take It with You, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, It’s a Wonderful Life, High Noon, Friendly Persuasion, Giant, The Alamo, The Sundowners, The Guns of Navarone
TYPECAST IN: Epics, Westerns
TOP BOX-OFFICE HITS:
1. Giant--13.8
2. The Guns of Navarone--13.0
3. Duel in the Sun--11
4. The Alamo--8
5. The High and the Mighty--6
The War Wagon--6
7. Rio Bravo--5.2
8. Friendly Persuasion--5.05
9. 55 Days at Peking--5.0
10. Gunfight at the O.K. Corral --4
Towards the end of his career, Tiomkin made the unusual choice (for a composer) of turning towards film production. His first project as producer was the lavish Western Mackenna’s Gold, reuniting him with The Guns of Navarone vets Gregory Peck and director J. Lee Thompson, but, surprisingly (and possibly against Tiomkin’s will), it had a score by Quincy Jones instead of by Tiomkin himself. His next and final film as producer was a Russian biopic of Tchaikovsky, which earned Tiomkin his final Oscar nomination for the film’s adapted score; he died in 1979 at the age of 85.
AGE: 67
BIRTHPLACE: New Haven, Connecticut
9 OSCARS, 42 NOMINATIONS
1 GRAMMY NOMINATION
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Dodsworth, Dead End, Alexander’s Ragtime Band, Wuthering Heights, The Grapes of Wrath, How Green Was My Valley, The Song of Bernadette, Wilson, The Razor’s Edge, Gentleman’s Agreement, The Snake Pit, A Letter to Three Wives, All about Eve, The Robe, Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing, The King and I, The Diary of Anne Frank, How the West Was Won
TYPECAST IN: Epics, Musicals
TOP BOX-OFFICE HITS:
1. How the West Was Won--23
2. The Robe--17
3. The King and I--8
4. How to Marry a Millionaire--7.3
5. David and Bathsheba--7.1
6. The Greatest Story Ever Told--7.0
7. Camelot--6.6
8. The Seven Year Itch--6.0
9. Leave Her to Heaven--5.5
Nevada Smith--5.5
Early in 1968 Newman won what would prove to be his final Oscar, for his adaptation of the Lerner & Loewe Camelot score. He would go on to write only one more film score, earning his final Oscar nomination for 1970’s blockbuster hit (and Best Picture nominee) Airport, which helped inaugurate the disaster movie craze of the ‘70s, as well as featuring one of Newman’s most insanely catchy themes. He died mere weeks before the film’s opening, at the age of 68, and among the most impressive parts of his legacy are his two composer sons, David and Thomas Newman. (Newman’s ranking on this list was based on his asking price for original scores -- his asking price for musicals was twice as much)
AGE: 44
BIRTHPLACE: Cleveland, Ohio
3 OSCARS, 9 NOMINATIONS
1 EMMY NOMINATION
17 GRAMMYS, 40 NOMINATIONS
RELATIONSHIPS: Stanley Donen, Blake Edwards
TYPECAST IN: Comedy, romance
TOP BOX-OFFICE HITS:
1. The Great Race--10
2. The Glenn Miller Story--7.6
3. Wait Until Dark--7.35
4. Hatari! --7.0
5. A Shot in the Dark--6.7
6. Charade--6.15
7. The Pink Panther--6.0
8. Days of Wine and Roses--4.3
9. Breakfast at Tiffany’s--4.2
10. Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation--4.0
Arabesque--4.0
WHAT’S NEXT: Me, Natalie
While Mancini would never again match the enormous commercial popularity of his 1950s/early 1960s tunes (“Peter Gunn,” “Baby Elephant Walk,” “Moon River,” “Days of Wine and Roses,” “The Pink Panther Theme”), he balanced an admirable scoring career with success as a recording artist, and until John Williams’ blockbuster successes of the mid 1970s he was the only film composer who was also a household name. Apart from a mysterious five-year gap in the early 1970s, he maintained a prolific filmmaking partnership with director Blake Edwards from the late 1950s to the early 1990s, including a fourth Oscar, for Victor/Victoria’s song score. The team was at work writing a stage musical version of Victor when Mancini died in 1994 at the age of 70; Frank Wildhorn wrote additional songs after Mancini’s passing, and the show opened on Broadway in 1995, running for 734 performances. Mancini received a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995. (Mancini’s ranking on this list was based on his asking price for original scores – his asking price for musicals was more than two and a half times as much, the highest asking price for any composer on this list; at the time Darling Lili was in the works but had not yet been released).
AGE: 44
BIRTHPLACE: Lyon, France
2 OSCARS, 3 NOMINATIONS
1 GRAMMY, 6 NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Lawrence of Arabia, The Longest Day, Doctor Zhivago
RELATIONSHIPS: John Frankenheimer, David Lean
TYPECAST IN: Epics
TOP BOX-OFFICE HITS:
1. Doctor Zhivago--37
2. The Longest Day--17
3. Lawrence of Arabia--15
4. Grand Prix--8.75
5. The Professionals--8.3
6. Five Card Stud--3.5
7. The Train--3.45
8. Gambit--2.5
9. The Night of the Generals--2.4
10. The Collector--1
WHAT’S NEXT: The Fixer, The Loves of Isadora
Like Mancini, he never surpassed the commercial success of his 1960s achievement (in his case, the hugely popular Doctor Zhivago), but remained an A-list composer through the end of the century, with an especially remarkable run in the mid/late ‘80s including such hits as Witness, Fatal Attraction, Dead Poets Society and Ghost (all Best Picture nominees). He won his third and final Oscar for his last film with director David Lean, 1984’s A Passage to India, and his final score was for the 2001 TV movie Uprising. He died in 2009 at the age of 85.
3. BURT BACHARACH
AGE: 40
BIRTHPLACE: Kansas City, Missouri
3 OSCAR NOMINATIONS
1 EMMY NOMINATION
1 GRAMMY, 6 NOMINATIONS
RELATIONSHIPS: Charles K. Feldman
TYPECAST IN: Comedy
TOP BOX-OFFICE HITS:
1. Casino Royale--10
2. What’s New, Pussycat?--8
3. After the Fox--2
WHAT’S NEXT: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Bacharach would have his biggest film hit the following year, winning score and song (“Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head”) Oscars for Best Picture nominee Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but after his flop 1973 film musical of Lost Horizon, he took on few film assignments -- most notably providing the score and Oscar-winning song for 1981’s Arthur. His last film score to date was the low-budget 2016 drama Po, about a father’s relationship with his autistic child (a subject Bacharach responded to as the father of a daughter with Asperger’s), and he had a cameo as himself in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. He remains a legend as a popular songwriter, particularly his collaborations with lyricist Hal David, and this May he celebrated his 89th birthday.
2. LEONARD BERNSTEIN
AGE: 50
BIRTHPLACE: Lawrence, Massachusetts
1 OSCAR NOMINATION
4 EMMYS, 5 NOMINATIONS
6 GRAMMYS, 22 NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEE: On the Waterfront
TOP BOX-OFFICE HIT:
1. On the Waterfront--4
Leonard Bernstein had a tremendous success with his very first film score in 1954, with On the Waterfront winning eight Oscars including Best Picture and earning the first-time scorer an Original Score nomination. Waterfront was such a tough act to follow for a film composer that Bernstein never scored a film again. Obviously, he didn’t exactly rest on his laurels, and while West Side Story remains his most popular work -- the stage musical premiered on Broadway in 1957, and the film version was an even bigger hit, its soundtrack album spending a record 54 weeks on the top of Billboard’s album charts -- he concentrated more on his original concert pieces and on conducting. The legendary composer, conductor, author and lecturer died in 1990 at the age of 72. And in 1968, his asking price to write a film score was $50,000.
AGE: 67
BIRTHPLACE: Brooklyn, New York
1 OSCAR, 6 NOMINATIONS
1 EMMY NOMINATION
1 GRAMMY, 6 NOMINATIONS
BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: Of Mice and Men, Our Town, The Heiress
TYPECAST IN: Americana
TOP BOX-OFFICE HIT:
1. The Heiress--2
Like Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland was already an American music legend in 1968, his concert pieces today still defining the musical sound of Americana. And like Bernstein, he had already retired (officially or unofficially) from film scoring. He only scored six feature films during his career, but those six included classics like Of Mice and Men, Our Town and The Heiress, and earned him one Oscar and six nominations. His winning score, 1949’s The Heiress, had been tampered with by the studio, and after that he went on to write only one more score, for 1961’s Something Wild. He died in 1990, less than two months after Leonard Bernstein's passing, at the age of 90. And in 1968, his asking price to compose a film score was $50,000 – 75,000.
As indicated in some of the individual entries, the chart also listed the asking price for musicals for several of these composers (in most of these cases, they would serve as music director, not songwriter), and here is how they were ranked financially:
1. Henry Mancini
2. Johnny Green
Alfred Newman
Andre Previn
5. Irwin Kostal
6. Ray Heindorf
7. Peter Matz
8. Nelson Riddle
Here is the complete list, including Parts One and Two (all of the names are listed in the order from the original document, which is why they are sometimes out of order alphabetically):
1
Aaron Copland
2
Leonard Bernstein
3
Burt Bacharach
4
Maurice Jarre
5
A. John Barry
B. Andre Previn
C. Elmer Bernstein
D. Ernest Gold
E. Quincy Jones
F. Alex North
G. Jerry Goldsmith
H. Miklos Rozsa
I. Mario Nascimbene
J. Dimitri Tiomkin
K. Alfred Newman
L. Henry Mancini
6
A. Neal Hefti
B. Bernard Herrmann
C. Fred Karlin
D. Johnny Green
E. Irwin Kostal
7
A. Sol Kaplan
B. Johnny Mandel
C. Leonard Rosenman
D. Lalo Schifrin
8
Bronislau Kaper
9
A. John Addison
B. Frank DeVol
C. Kenyon Hopkins
D. Francis Lai
E. David Rose
F. Laurence Rosenthal
G. Johnny Williams
H. Oliver Nelson
10
A. Nelson Riddle
B. George Duning
C. Percy Faith
D. Dave Grusin
E. David Raksin
F. Luiz Bonfa
11
A. Earle Hagen
B. Lyn Murray
C. Stanley Myers
D. Walter Scharf
E. Patrick Williams
12
A. Malcolm Arnold
B. Riz Ortolani
13
A. Jeff Alexander
B. Don Costa
C. Marvin Hamlisch
D. Leigh Harline
E. John Keating
F. Joseph J. Lilley
G. Hugo Montenegro
H. Jerome Moross
I. Harry Sukman
J. Ralph Ferraro
14
A. Robert Emmett Dolan
B. Jerry Fielding
C. Hugo Friedhofer
D. Dominc Frontiere
E. Vic Mizzy
F. Marty Paich
G. Pete Rugolo
15
A. Benny Carter
B. Booker T. Jones (and the MG’s)
C. John Dankworth
D. Gerald Fried
E. Pete King
F. Fred Steiner
G. Leith Stevens
H. Nathan Van Cleave
16
A. Van Alexander
B. Les Baxter
C. Richard Markowitz
17
A. Luchi De Jesus
B. Irving Gertz
C. Jimmie Haskell
D. Richard LaSalle
E. William Lava
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