Victor Young

Victor Young was born in Chicago in 1899 into a musical family. As a boy he was sent to live with his grandfather in Warsaw, where he studied violin at the Warsaw Conservatory and made his concert debut with the Warsaw Philharmonic. After World War I he returned to the United States, worked as a violinist and concertmaster in theater orchestras, and then turned to arranging, conducting and songwriting for radio and records.

In the mid-1930s Young moved to Hollywood and joined Paramount, where he became one of the most prolific composers of the era, scoring hundreds of films, often several at a time. He earned 22 Academy Award nominations, a remarkable total, for films including For Whom the Bell Tolls and Samson and Delilah.

Young was above all a melodist. Many of his film themes became popular standards, including "Stella by Starlight" from The Uninvited, "When I Fall in Love" and "My Foolish Heart." His score for George Stevens's Western Shane (1953) supports the film's quiet dignity with a gentle, pastoral main theme, "The Call of the Faraway Hills," and remains closely associated with the classic Western. He also scored John Ford's The Quiet Man.

Young received his only Academy Award posthumously, for Around the World in 80 Days (1956). He died of a heart attack in Palm Springs in November 1956, and his Oscar was accepted on his behalf the following spring.