Alfred Newman

Universal Pictures Alfred Newman, Composer and Conductor

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.)