Dimitri Tiomkin

Tiomkin received 22 Academy Award nominations and won four Oscars: three for Best Original Score for High Noon, The High and the Mighty, and The Old Man and the Sea and one for Best Original Song for "The Ballad of High Noon" from High Noon.

Dimitri Tiomkin studied at Saint Petersburg Conservatory. Training under Felix Mikhailovich Blumenfeld, Isabelle Vengerova and Alexander Glazunov is recorded. The recorded working language is Ukrainian. The field of work recorded is film score. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are film score. Places of work recorded in the authority are Saint Petersburg, Hollywood and United States. Distinctions recorded are Academy Award for Best Original Dramatic or Comedy Score, Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score, Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and Officer of the Legion of Honour.

• Name — Dimitri Tiomkin • Birth Name — Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin • Born — 10 May 1894 • Birthplace — Kremenchug, Russian Empire (now in Ukraine) • Died — 11 November 1979 • Place of death — London, England • Occupation — Composer • Notable Works — * High Noon • Giant • Years Active — 1929–1979

• Illustration — With his mother, circa 1900 Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin was born on May 10, 1894, in Kremenchug, a city then in the Poltava Governorate of the Russian Empire and now in Ukraine. His family was of Jewish descent; his father, Zinovy Tiomkin, was a "distinguished pathologist" and associate of professor Paul Ehrlich, and later a notable Zionist leader. His mother, Maria Tartakovskaya, was a musician who began teaching the young Tiomkin piano at an early age. Her hope was to have her son become a professional pianist, according to Tiomkin biographer Christopher Palmer. Tiomkin described his mother as being "small, blonde, merry and vivacious." Tiomkin was educated at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied piano with Felix Blumenfeld, teacher of Vladimir Horowitz, and harmony and counterpoint with Alexander Glazunov, mentor to Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich. He also studied piano with Isabelle Vengerova. He survived the revolution and found work under the new regime. In 1920, while working for the Petrograd Military District Political Administration (PUR), Tiomkin was one of the lead organizers of two revolutionary mass spectacles, the Mystery of Liberated Labor, a mystery play for the May Day festivities, and The Storming of the Winter Palace for the celebrations of the third anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution. He supported himself while living in Saint Petersburg by playing piano accompaniment for numerous Russian silent films. Tiomkin joined many exiles in moving to Berlin after the Russian Revolution to live with his father. In Berlin, from 1921 to 1923, he studied with the pianist Ferruccio Busoni and Busoni's disciples Egon Petri and Michael von Zadora. He composed light classical and popular music, and made his performing debut as a pianist playing Franz Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Berlin Philharmonic. He moved to Paris with his roommate, Michael Khariton, to perform a piano duo repertory together. They did this before the end of 1924.

In 1925, the duo received an offer from the New York theatrical producer Morris Gest and emigrated to the United States. They performed together on the Keith/Albee and Orpheum vaudeville circuits, in which they accompanied a ballet troupe run by the Austrian ballerina Albertina Rasch. Tiomkin and Rasch's professional relationship evolved into a personal one, and they married in 1927. While in New York, Tiomkin gave a recital at Carnegie Hall that featured contemporary music by Maurice Ravel, Alexander Scriabin, Francis Poulenc, and Alexandre Tansman. He and his new wife went on tour to Paris in 1928, where he played the European premiere of American George Gershwin's Concerto in F at the Paris Opera, with Gershwin in the audience. After the stock market crash in October 1929 reduced work opportunities in New York, Tiomkin and his wife moved to Hollywood, where she was hired to supervise dance numbers in MGM film musicals. He worked on some minor films, some without being credited under his own name. His first significant film score project was for Paramount's Alice in Wonderland (1933). Although Tiomkin worked on some smaller film projects, his goal was to become a concert pianist. In 1937, he broke his arm, injuring it so much that he ended that possible career. He began to focus on work as a film music composer.

Tiomkin received his first break from Columbia director Frank Capra, who chose him to write and perform the score for Lost Horizon (1937). The film gained significant recognition for Tiomkin in Hollywood. It was released the same year that he became a naturalized US citizen. In his autobiography, Please Don't Hate Me! (1959), Tiomkin recalls how the assignment by Capra forced him to first confront a director in a matter of music style: • Illustration — Army letter thanking Tiomkin He worked on other Capra films during the following decade, including the comedy You Can't Take It With You (1938), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), Meet John Doe (1941), and It's a Wonderful Life (1946). During World War II, he continued his close collaboration with Capra by composing scores for his Why We Fight series. These seven films were commissioned by the US government to show American soldiers the reason for United States' participation in the war. They were later released to the general US public to generate support for American involvement. Tiomkin credited Capra for broadening his musical horizons by shifting them away from a purely Eurocentric and romantic style to a more American style based on subject matter and story.

Following his work for Fred Zinnemann on The Men (1950), Tiomkin composed the score for the same director's High Noon (1952). His theme song was "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin'" ("The Ballad of High Noon"). At its opening preview to the press, the film, which starred Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly, did badly. Tiomkin writes that "film experts agreed that the picture was a flat failure.... The producers hesitated to release the picture." Tiomkin bought the rights to the song and released it as a single for the popular music market, with singer Frankie Laine. The record became an immediate success worldwide. Based on the song's popularity, the studio released the film four months later, with the words sung by country western star Tex Ritter. The film received seven Academy Award nominations and won four awards, including two for Tiomkin: Best Original Music and Best Song. Walt Disney presented him with both awards that evening. According to film historian Arthur R. Jarvis Jr., the score "has been credited with saving the movie." Another music expert, Mervyn Cooke, agrees, adding that "the song's spectacular success was partly responsible for changing the course of film-music history". Tiomkin was the second composer to receive two Oscars (score and song) for the same dramatic film. (The first was Leigh Harline, who won Best Original Score for Disney's Pinocchio and Best Song for "When You Wish Upon a Star". Ned Washington wrote its lyrics as he did for "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin".) The song's lyrics briefly tell High Noons entire story arc, a tale of cowardice and conformity in a small Western town. Tiomkin composed his entire score around this single western-style ballad. He also eliminated violins from the ensemble. He added a subtle harmonica in the background, to give the film a "rustic, deglamorized sound that suits the anti-heroic sentiments" expressed by the story. According to Russian film historian Harlow Robinson, building the score around a single folk tune was typical of many Russian classical composers. Robinson adds that the source of Tiomkin's score, if indeed folk, has not been proven. The Encyclopedia of Modern Jewish Culture, on page 124, states: "The fifty-year period in the USA between 1914, the start of the First World War and the year of Irving Berlin's first full score, Watch Your Step, and 1964, the premiere of Bock and Harnick's Fiddler on the Roof, is informed by a rich musical legacy from Yiddish folk tunes (for example Mark Warshavsky's "Di milners trem," The miller's tears: and Dimitri Tiomkin's "Do Not Forsake Me." High Noon)... " Tiomkin won two more Oscars in subsequent years: for The High and the Mighty (1954), directed by William A. Wellman, and featuring John Wayne; and The Old Man and the Sea (1958), adapted from an Ernest Hemingway novel. During the 1955 ceremonies, Tiomkin thanked all of the earlier composers who had influenced him, including Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, and other names from the European classical tradition. The composer worked again for Zinnemann on The Sundowners (1960).

In addition to the cinema, Tiomkin composed for television, including such memorable theme songs as Rawhide (1959) and Gunslinger. Although Tiomkin was hired to compose the theme for The Wild Wild West (1965), the producers rejected his music and subsequently hired Richard Markowitz as his replacement. Tiomkin also made a few cameo appearances on television programs. These include being the mystery challenger on What's My Line? and an appearance on Jack Benny's CBS program in December 1961, in which he attempted to help Benny write a song. He also appeared as a contestant on the October 20, 1955, episode of the TV quiz program You Bet Your Life, hosted by Groucho Marx. He composed the music to the song "Wild Is The Wind". It was originally recorded by Johnny Mathis for the film Wild Is the Wind (1957).

Tiomkin married Albertina Rasch in 1926; she died in 1967. In 1972, he married Olivia Patch, his secretary. On November 11, 1979, Tiomkin died in London, England, two weeks after fracturing his pelvis in a fall. He was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

* • Audio clips, 40 film samples •, audio score compilation by Berny Debney, 10 minutes * * * * * * * * * * • Tiomkin on You Bet Your Life in 1955

The authorities additionally record the heading Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin. His recorded language was Ukrainian. He was the child of Zionvy Tyomkin. He married Albertina Rasch and Olivia Cynthia Mary Patch.

• 1972 – nominated for "Best Music, Scoring Adaptation and Original Song" Score for Tchaikovsky (1969) • 1965 – nominated for "Best Music, Score – Substantially Original" for The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) • 1964 – nominated (with Paul Francis Webster) for "Best Music, Original Song" for 55 Days at Peking (1963) for "So Little Time", sung by Andy Williams • 1964 – nominated for "Best Music, Score – Substantially Original" for 55 Days at Peking (1963) • 1962 – nominated for "Best Original Song" for Town Without Pity (1961) • 1962 – nominated for "Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture" for The Guns of Navarone (1961) • 1961 – nominated (with Paul Francis Webster) for "Best Music, Original Song" for The Alamo (1960) for "The Green Leaves of Summer", sung by The Brothers Four • 1961 – nominated for "Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture" for The Alamo (1960) • 1961 – nominated for "Best Original Song" for The Young Land (1959) • 1959 – won an Oscar for "Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture" for The Old Man and the Sea (1958) • 1958 – nominated for "Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture" for Wild Is the Wind (1957) • 1957 – nominated for "Best Original Song" for "Friendly Persuasion", "Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture" for "Giant" (1956) • 1955 – won an Oscar for "Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture" for The High and Mighty • 1955 – nominated for "Best Original Song" for "The High and the Mighty" (1954) • 1953 – won (with Ned Washington) an Oscar for "Best Original Song" for High Noon (1952) for "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin'", sung by Tex Ritter • 1953 – won an Oscar for "Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture" for High Noon (1952) • 1950 – nominated for "Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture" for Champion (1949) • 1945 – nominated for "Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture" for The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944) • 1944 – nominated for "Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture" for The Moon and Sixpence (1943) • 1943 – nominated for "Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture" for The Corsican Brothers (1941) • 1940 – nominated for "Best Music, Scoring" for Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)

• 1965 for "Best Original Score" for The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) • 1962 for "Best Motion Picture Score" for The Guns of Navarone (1961) • 1962 for "Best Motion Picture Song" for Town without Pity (1961) • 1961 for "Best Original Score" for The Alamo (1960) • 1957 he received the "Special Award" as "Recognition for film music" • 1955 he received the "Special Award" "For creative musical contribution to Motion Picture" • 1953 for "Best Motion Picture Score" for High Noon (1952)