- Born
- Died
- Birth nameMaximilian Raoul Walter Steiner
- Height5′ 4″ (1.63 m)
- Austrian composer Max Steiner achieved legendary status as the creator of hundreds of classic American film scores. He was born Maximilian Raoul Walter Steiner in Vienna, Austria, the son of Marie Mizzi (Hasiba) and Gabor Steiner, an impresario, and the grandson of actor and theater director and manager Maximilian Steiner. His family was Jewish. As a child, he was astonishingly musically gifted, composing complex works as a teenager and completing the course of study at Vienna's Hochschule fuer Musik und Darstellende Kunst in only one year, at the age of sixteen. He studied under Gustav Mahler and, before the age of twenty, made his living as a conductor and as composer of works for the theater, the concert hall, and vaudeville. After a brief sojourn in Britian, Steiner moved to the USA in the same wave as fellow film composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold and quickly became a sought-after orchestrator and conductor on Broadway, bringing the Western classical tradition in which he had been raised to mainstream audiences.
He was soon snatched up by the film studios with the advent of sound and helped the fledgling talkies become musically sophisticated within a brief few years. He was one of the first to fully integrate the musical score with the images on-screen and to score individual scenes for their content and create leitmotifs for individual characters, as opposed to simply providing vaguely appropriate mood music, as evidenced in King Kong (1933), which set the standard for American film music for years to come.
From the 1930s to the 1960s, he was one of the most respected, innovative, and brilliant composers of American film music, creating a truly staggering number of exceptional scores for films of all types. He was nominated for Academy Awards for his scores eighteen times and won three times. Years after his death in 1971, he remains one of the giants of motion picture history, and his music still thrives.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net> - His grandfather produced operettas of Offenbach and Johann Strauss. Max studied at the Imperial Academy of Music in Vienna ,graduating at the age of 13 after completing the 8 year course in a year His father produced for the younger Strauss. who then moved to London and New York as concert pianist and conductor. With his scoring of the film 'Cimmarron' he moved to the fore front of film composers. For the film 'Gone With the Wind' he had to provide 282 musical episodes, 1 for each Scarlett, Melanie, Rhett, Scarlett's Father, the love of Melanie and Ashley, Scarlett and Ashley and most importantly Tara.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Tonyman 5
- In 1914 he arrived in America and began conducting and orchestrating scores for the musicals of George White, Florenz Ziegfeld and Victor Herbert, When films began using sound in 1929 he moved to Hollywood and began developing the style which continued to shape the way film music is written today, 18 Oscar nominations and 3 wins put him at the top of his field for more than 30 years, he was 83 when he died in 1971- IMDb Mini Biography By: Tonyman 5
- SpousesLeonette Blair(April 1, 1947 - December 28, 1971) (his death)Martha Mary Louisa Klos(October 1936 - May 3, 1945) (divorced, 1 child)Audree van Lieu(April 27, 1927 - December 14, 1933) (divorced)Beatrice Mary Tilt(September 12, 1912 - ?) (divorced)
- ParentsGabor Christian SteinerMarie Hasiba
- When he was 15 he won a medal for completing an eight-year music course in one year at the Imperial Academy of Music in Vienna. His teacher of conducting was Gustav Mahler.
- Worked on 36 films in 1934 and 37 the next year. It is doubtful anyone will ever approach that record again.
- Was regarded as the quintessential pioneer of American film composition, noted especially for his ability to integrate his music with the action on screen.
- Was extremely prodigious, composing 111 scores for RKO alone during his tenure as musical director between 1929-35. From 1936-65 he worked under contract at Warner Brothers, except for brief periods on loan to David O. Selznick.
- As a boy, Steiner was given piano instruction by legendary composer Johannes Brahms. Steiner's father was a major theatrical producer in Vienna, who had discovered and promoted Brahms, and the two remained great friends.
- I never run out of tunes. Music is always in my mind. Sometimes I wake up at three in the morning and begin tossing. My wife will say, 'Daddy, why don't you write it down?' So I get up, put it on a paper, and go back to sleep.
- Cash McCall (1960) - $10,000
- The FBI Story (1959) - $15,000
- Rio Rita (1929) - $450 /week
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