Johnny Green

John Waldo Green was born on October 10, 1908, in New York City, the son of Vivian Isidor Green and Irina Etelka Jellenik, both musical parents who married in Manhattan in 1907. Green died on May 15, 1989. A songwriter, composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist, he built one of the most wide-ranging careers in American music across Broadway, Hollywood, and the concert hall. His colleague Conrad Salinger gave him the nickname "Beulah." In later years, Green abandoned the "Johnny" billing he had used professionally and insisted on being addressed as "John" or "Maestro."

Green attended Horace Mann School and the New York Military Academy before being accepted to Harvard at age 15, entering in 1924. His musical training came from tutors Herman Wasserman, Ignace Hilsberg, and Walter Spalding. While still between semesters at Harvard, bandleader Guy Lombardo heard Green's Gold Coast Orchestra and engaged him to write dance arrangements for Lombardo's nationally prominent ensemble. Green's first song hit, "Coquette," followed in 1928, co-written with Carmen Lombardo and lyricist Gus Kahn. His father, Vivian, pushed him toward a career as a stockbroker, but Green left Wall Street, encouraged by his wife, the former Carol Faulk, to pursue music full time.

Early in his career Green arranged for dance orchestras, most notably for Jean Goldkette on NBC, and served as accompanist and arranger for singers including James Melton, Libby Holman, and Ethel Merman. It was while writing material for Gertrude Lawrence in 1930 that he composed "Body and Soul," which had appeared in the revue Three's a Crowd and became his most celebrated song. The first recording of the piece was made by Jack Hylton and His Orchestra eleven days before the song was copyrighted. Green went on to write several other compositions that entered the jazz standard repertoire, among them "Out of Nowhere," co-authored with Edward Heyman and recorded by Bing Crosby as his first number-one hit in 1931. Additional standards from the 1930s included "I Cover the Waterfront," "You're Mine You," "I Wanna Be Loved," "Easy Come Easy Go," and "Repeal the Blues."

From 1930 to 1933, Green worked as arranger and conductor for Paramount Pictures, collaborating with singers such as Merman, Lawrence, and Melton. During that period he also wrote music for films at Paramount's Astoria Studios, conducted in East Coast theatres, and toured vaudeville as musical director for Buddy Rogers. His time at Astoria allowed him to study film scoring alongside veterans Adolph Deutsch and Frank Tours. Nathaniel Shilkret and Paul Whiteman also commissioned him to compose larger orchestral works; one such piece, "Night Club (Six Impressions for Orchestra with Three Pianos)," was introduced by Whiteman at Carnegie Hall on January 25, 1933, with Green at the first piano and Roy Bargy and Ramona at the other two.

Green spent much of 1933 in London, contributing songs to Mr. Whittington, a musical comedy for Jack Buchanan at the London Hippodrome, and to Big Business, described as the first musical comedy written for BBC Radio. Returning to the United States in early 1934, he formed Johnny Green, His Piano and Orchestra at the encouragement of CBS president William S. Paley, with the ensemble based for a time at New York's St. Regis Hotel and recording for the Columbia and Brunswick labels. Green's Broadway work includes the musical Beat the Band, adding a stage credit to his already extensive portfolio. In 1935 he starred on CBS's Socony Sketchbook and served as musical director for The Jell-O Program Starring Jack Benny during its 1935–1936 NBC season. The following year he led the orchestra for The Fred Astaire Hour, sponsored by Packard Motors over NBC and also featuring tenor Allan Jones and comedian Charles Butterworth. His band backed Astaire on recording sessions in both New York and Hollywood between 1935 and 1937.

Green relocated permanently to Hollywood to work in film, eventually joining Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Working alongside orchestrator Conrad Salinger, he was instrumental in reshaping the sound of the MGM Symphony Orchestra during the 1940s, partly through the re-seating of players, a change that distinguishes the orchestral texture of MGM musicals from the mid-1940s onward from those produced before approximately 1944. He served as music director at MGM from 1949 to 1959, during which time he compiled and arranged the MGM Jubilee Overture in 1954 and produced the score for Raintree County in 1957. On loan to Universal, he composed songs for the Deanna Durbin musical Something in the Wind. Nominated for an Academy Award thirteen times, Green won four for musical scores — Easter Parade, An American in Paris, West Side Story, and Oliver! — and a fifth for producing the short subject "The Merry Wives of Windsor Overture," which took the Short Subjects (One-Reel) award in 1954 and featured Green conducting the MGM Orchestra on-screen in music from Otto Nicolai's opera of the same name.

After leaving MGM, Green guest-conducted with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Denver Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, and Hollywood Bowl Orchestra. He continued composing film scores, including Twilight of Honor (1963), Johnny Tiger (1966), and Alvarez Kelly (1966), and provided arrangements and musical direction for They Shoot Horses, Don't They? in 1969. Green was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972 and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.