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One of the best film composers of all time, Max (imilian
Steiner) was born in Vienna, Austria, on May 10th of 1888. He arrived
in United States in 1914, and worked on Broadway as a conductor and orchestrator
until 1929, when he moved to Hollywood to become RKO studio’s musical director
and composer.  The first “real” movie composer, writing
full-scores for early “talkies” like Symphony
of Six Million (1932), King Kong
(1933) and The Informer (1935), Steiner
left RKO in 1936, and started partnerships with independent producer David
Selznick, for whom he wrote the unforgettable music of Gone With the Wind (1939),
and Warner Bros., where, along Erich W. Korngold, he established the melodious,
richly orchestrated style of the 19th century european romantic
composers as the sound of the Golden Age of Hollywood.
 Steiner’s career at Warners is amazingly productive
and versatile, and includes great scores for the studio’s major stars: Bette
Davis (Jezebel, Dark Victory, Now Voyager),
Humphrey Bogart (Casablanca, adapting
Herman Hupfeld’s “As Time Goes By”, The
Big Sleep, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre), Errol Flynn (The
Charge of the Light Brigade, Dodge
City, Adventures of Don Juan) and
James Cagney (City for Conquest, White
Heat). Among the many other Warner pictures enhanced by his music
are: The Life of Emile Zola
(1937), Mildred Pierce (1945), Johnny
Belinda (1948) and The Searchers
(1956). Between
1936 and 1947, Steiner´s scores were orchestrated by Hugo Friedhofer, and after
that by Murray Cutter.
Max Steiner won Oscars for The Informer (1935), Now
Voyager (1942) and Since You
Went Away (1944), and a Golden Globe for Life
With Father (1947). In 1960, Percy Faith’s orchestra had a big hit with
Steiner’s theme for A Summer Place
(1959).
Steiner married four times, the last time with Leonnette Blair, his wife
since 1947 until the end of his life. The composer´s son, Ronald (born in
1940), commited suicide in 1962. The legendary composer, one of the true geniuses of motion picture music,
died in December of 1971. “Notes to You”, his autobiography started
in 1963, was not concluded.
 Max Steiner´s
Filmography, from Internet
Movie Database.
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