Alex North Quotes

• When I decided to go to a country that subsidized music, I went to the Soviet Union for two years.

  Alex North

• Today it’s not culture; it’s box office.

  Alex North

• There are so few directors who are musical who appreciate music.

  Alex North

• There are scores you have to write objectively without getting involved.

  Alex North

• The United States and Turkey are the only two countries that don’t have some kind of subsidy for the Arts. The whole culture in society has made certain films more acceptable. I turned down so many films in the ’60s and ’70s.

  Alex North

• My best film composing experience was with Elia Kazan.

  Alex North

• I prefer to write music for family films. I like people.

  Alex North

• I like what I hear as a resulting combination of these two strands… something of a combination of familiarity and, for lack of a better word, strangeness.

  Alex North

• Fear is a problem with film music and films; people want to be conventional, and there’s more commercialism today. If you are not daring in your art, you’re bankrupt.

  Alex North

• Composers today get a TV script on Friday and have to record on Tuesday. It’s just dreadful to impose on gifted talent and expect decent music under these conditions.

  Alex North

• Being an old radical, I like films like Spartacus. I could relate to the hero.

  Alex North

Alex North (11)

Birth:	4th December, 1910
Death:	8th September, 1991
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Composer

About

Alex North was an American composer who wrote the first jazz-based film score and one of the first modernist scores written in Hollywood. His best-known film scores include The Rainmaker 1956, Spartacus 1960, The Misfits 1961,The Children's Hour 1961 Cleopatra 1963, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? 1966, The Devil's Brigade 1968, and Dragonslayer 1981. He composed the music for "The Wonderful Country" in a Mexican and southwestern US motif. His classical works include a Rhapsody for Piano, Trumpet obbligato and Orchestra. He was nominated for a Grammy Award for his score for the 1976 television miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man. North is also known for his opening to the CBS television anthology series Playhouse 90 and the 1965 ABC television miniseries FDR.

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Births

• 1855 - Eugene V. Debs
• 1947 - Peter Noone
• 1971 - Jonny Greenwood
• 1976 - Sam Page
• 1934 - Victor Argo

Deaths

• 1991 - Robert Maxwell
• 1990 - Meir Kahane
• 2000 - Roger Peyrefitte
• 2005 - Link Wray
• 1963 - Luis Cernuda