Dimitri Tiomkin

Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin (Russian: ??????? ?????????? ??????, Dmitrij Zinov'evi? T?mkin, somtimes translated as Dmitri Tiomkin) (May 10, 1894 ? November 11, 1979) was a film composer and conductor. Along with Max Steiner, Mikl?s R?zsa and Franz Waxman, Tiomkin was one of the most productive and decorated film music writers of Hollywood. Tiomkin was born in Kremenchug, Ukraine and educated at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in Russia.

Tiomkin was born in Kremenchug, Ukraine and educated at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in Russia. He emigrated in 1925 to the United States and became an American citizen in 1937. Although influenced by Eastern European music traditions, he was able to score typical American movies like Frank Capra's famous Lost Horizon (1937) or It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and also Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), both with James Stewart. He also worked on Fred Zinnemann's High Noon (1952), which also won him a "Best Song" Oscar for "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin'(The Ballad of High Noon)". In 1954, he won the Academy Award for best song of the John Wayne film The High and the Mighty.

Many classic scores followed, many of which were also in Western movies, like The High and the Mighty (1954), Giant (1956), Friendly Persuasion (1956), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), Rio Bravo (1959), The Alamo (1960), Town Without Pity (1961) or 55 Days at Peking (1963), The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) and many more.

Besides cinema he was also active in writing for the small screen, writing some memorable television theme-songs, as for Rawhide (1959) and Gunslinger. He was also hired to write the theme for TV's The Wild Wild West (1965), but the producers rejected his themes and hired Richard Markowitz.

Dimitri Tiomkin died in London, England in 1979 and was interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimitri_Tiomkin)