Forgotten Hollywood

Manny P. here…

“`Oscar-nominated and Emmy-winning composer John Morris was a steady collaborator with Mel Brooks. His themes defined an era of comedy not to be replicated. He is best remembered for writing the theme to Blazing Saddles, and the score of Young Frankenstein.

“`He studied at the Juilliard School of Music and New School for Social Research. John went on to work on Broadway, doing dance arrangements for noted musicals, including Bells are Ringing, Bye Bye Birdie, and Mack and Mabel. He also had his hand in Shakespeare, creating music for productions of King Lear and Hamlet.  Morris preferred to perform as an accompanist, playing piano for many singers; most notably, with Judy Garland.

“`Morris first worked with Brooks on 1967’s The Producers. He arranged the popular tune, Springtime for Hitler, and composed the score for the movie. Morris also penned a dramatic score for The Elephant Man, which earned him a Grammy nomination. The two worked together for 24 years on ten films, including The Twelve Chairs, Silent Movie, High Anxiety, Spaceballs, History of the World, Part I, and Mel’s reworking of To Be or Not To Be.

“`Outside of the Brooks cinematic universe, John wrote scores for benchmark films during the 1980s, such as Johnny Dangerously, Clue, Dirty Dancing, and Ironweed. Morris provided the music for Gene Wilder’s motion pictures, including The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother and The Woman in Red. 

“`On television, Morris wrote the title track for Julia Child’s  The French Chef; and the lively theme for Coach. He composed the scores for a few mini-teleplays, and received a Daytime Emmy in 1978 for the after-school special, The Tap Dance Kid.

“`John Morris (above) was 91.

Until next time>                               “never forget”

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 27th, 2018 at 2:03 am and is filed under Blog by Manny Pacheco. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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