Edward Ward (1896-1971) was a composer and musical director, seven-times Oscar nominated, though with no wins.
In 1930 he co-wrote a number for Chasing Rainbows, later composed music for Reckless, Maytime and The Firefly.
Ward also composed music used in the trailer for Broadway Melody of 1936.
Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin ((1894-1979) was one of the most celebrated Hollywood composers of all time. He was nominated for Oscars 22 times, and won on four occasions: The High and the Mighty (1954), High Noon (winning for both Best Score and Best Song), and The Old Man and the Sea (1958).
Tiomkin’s contributions to MGM’s musicals were more modest. He wrote ballet music used in Devil-May-Care and The Rogue Song, and collaborated with Raymond B Egan on the song ‘Blue Daughter of Heaven’ for Lord Byron of Broadway.
Herbert Pope Stothart (1885-1949) is a composer whose name is less familiar today than, say, Dimitri Tiomkin or Max Steiner, but in Hollywood’s golden age he was ranked alongside them for his work at MGM.
Stothart had a successful career writing stage musicals, most notably Rose-Marie, but was invited to join Metro in 1929. He signed a contract and stayed there for the rest of his life.
Scores by Stothart were prominent in some of the studio’s most important pictures of the 1930s and 40s. These included Queen Christina (1933), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), Camille (1936), The Good Earth (1937), Pride and Prejudice (1940), Mrs Miniver (1942), They Were Expendable (1945) and The Yearling (1946). In all, Stothart wrote over 100 scores.
Stothart worked on many of MGM’s musicals. He and Clifford Grey wrote the songs for Devil-May-Care and contributed numbers to Montana Moon, The Rogue Song, In Gay Madrid, The Florodora Girl, Call of the Flesh, New Moon and Madam Satan.
He worked with other lyricists on A Lady’s Morals, The Cuban Love Song, Here Comes the Band, Maytime, The Firefly (composing ‘The Donkey Serenade’), Broadway Serenade, Balalaika, The Chocolate Soldier and I Married an Angel.
Stothart was the musical director on some of these films and also on The Cat and the Fiddle, Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow, The Night is Young, Naughty Marietta, Reckless, San Francisco, Rosalie, The Girl of the Golden West, Sweethearts, The Wizard of Oz (picking up an Oscar), New Moon, Bitter Sweet, Rio Rita, Thousands Cheer, Ziegfeld Girl, Cairo, Thousands Cheer, Kismet, The Unfinished Dance. Musical direction usually involved writing incidental music.
And, of course, Metro produced two versions of Stothart’s greatest stage success, Rose-Marie, and he worked on the first version.
Ernst Hersh Klapholz (1881?-1965) was a composer and musical arranger, and also business partner of Arthur Lange. His sole MGM musical was as one of the arrangers on The Hollywood Revue of 1929.
Raymond John Heindorf (1908-1980) was a composer and musical arranger who worked on The Hollywood Revue of 1929 and soon after moved tothe music department at Warner Bros, where he spent most of his long career.
A Jazz aficionado, Heindorf was known for his willingness to use Black musicians in what was largely a segregated industry.
Arthur Lange (1889-1956) was a prolific composer of songs, scores and incidental music for dozens of films at a variety of studios.
At MGM Lange began by composing and arranging music for the Buster Keaton ‘underwater’ sequence in The Hollywood Revue of 1929, where he also appeared onscreen conducting the orchestra. Lange also made an appearance as himself in Free and Easy. He was subsequently the musical arranger onSo This Is College, and composed and arranged forThe Great Ziegfeld and Let Freedom Ring.
Karl Max Schneefuss (1892-1962), who worked under the name Charles Maxwell, started his career at MGM as assistant to William Axt, compositing additional music for Marianne.
Most of Maxwell’s career in musicals was spent as an orchestrator, in which capacity he worked on The Cuban Love Song, Dancing Lady,The Cat and the Fiddle,The Merry Widow, Naughty Marietta, Here Comes the Band , A Night at the Opera, Rose-Marie,The Great Ziegfeld, San Francisco, The Firefly and New Moon.
William Axt (1888-1959) was a composer and conductor who joined the MGM music department in 1929 and went on to write hundreds of scores. He composed for a number of musicals, mostly early in his career: Marianne, It’s a Great Life, Devil-May-Care, Chasing Rainbows,The Rogue Song, Free and Easy, Call of the Flesh, Madam Satan, Hollywood Party, The Great Ziegfeld, Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry, Everybody Sing and Listen, Darling.
Axi’s work was also taken off the shelf for use as stock music in New Moon, Student Tour, Balalaika and Little Nellie Kelly .
