Alfred Newman
Robert Russell Bennett recalls the work of Alfred Newman, who as leader of the 1920’s Greenwich Village Follies and George White’s Scandals became Broadway’s youngest-ever music director at less than twenty years old. “I never saw a sign of immaturity.” Newman (1900-1970) had studied to be a concert pianist but, of necessity, worked in theater and vaudeville in New York.
A student of William Daly (who led most of George Gershwin’s shows), Newman began work in Hollywood in 1930; and, ten years later, he began two decades as 20th Century-Fox’s Music Director. (See more on Newman’s impressive career in Hollywood in the Section on European Musical Training.)