Leroy Bernard Shield (1893-1962) started playing the piano at a dance academy aged 10, and was a professional concert pianist at 12. Later, he was a regimental band leader during his military service.
In 1923, Shield became a staff musician for a company that went on to form part of RCA. In 1929, RCA provided the Hal Roach Studios with the technology for the transition to sound, and Shield travelled to Hollywood to assist with the process. This included working with performers during their initial voice tests.
While there, Shield composed incidental music that was used in Roach’s Our Gang and Laurel and Hardy shorts. The pieces were used in many of their pictures, and are often misattributed to Marvin Hatley, who composed ‘Dance of the Cuckoos’.
Shield only received two onscreen credits, for the feature musical The Devil’s Brother and Our Relations (1936). He made one screen appearance, as a band leader in Let’s Do Things (1931), the first of the Thelma Todd and ZaSu Pitts series.
In later life, Shield worked extensively in radio, toured with Toscanini, and wrote classical compositions.
