Prologue
PART ONE The Little Prince
1 Elegant Revolutions
2 Heir Apparent
PART TWO The Wanderer
3 Come Over Here
4 Stairway to Paradise
5 roaring in the Twenties
PART THREE The Apprentice
6 Where Does the Music Come From?
7 Revolution
8 Startling, Unusual Sensation
9 Orchids in the Moonlight
10 Working Night and Day
PART FOUR Emperor
11 Monarch of Sound
12 Exodus
13 Battles Won and Lost
14 The Right Place to Be
15 Fighting for Steiner
16 The South is Dead
17 Breaking Point
18 Voyage into Fog
19 Yours, Herman Hupfeld
20 Sucker
21 Aur Revoir and Bonjour
22 Indian Summer
23 Falling Star
PART FIVE Twilight of the Gods
24 A Jewish Aloha
25 Götterdämmerung
26 Coda
Steven C. Smith is a four-time Emmy nominated journalist, writer,
and producer of over 200 documentaries about music and cinema,
including The Sound of a City: Julie Andrews Returns to Salzburg
(2015); A Place for Us: West Side Story's Legacy (2011); The Lure
of the Desert: Martin Scorsese on Lawrence of Arabia (2013);
Passion, Prejudice and South Pacific: Creating an American
Masterpiece (2009); and Thou
Shalt Not! Sex, Sin and Censorship in Pre-Code Hollywood (2008). He
is the author of A Heart at Fire's Center: The Life and Music of
Bernard Herrmann (1991).
"Movie lovers and film music aficionados will forever be in Steven
C. Smith's debt for telling the full story of Max Steiner's life
and career. Gracefully written, this sympathetic portrait captures
the prodigious composer's personality and documents his many
milestone achievements, from King Kong to Gone With The Wind and
Casablanca. I loved reading it."-Leonard Maltin, Film Critic and
Historian
"Smith's life of Max Steiner moves like an express train, every
page crammed with interest and scrupulous research, both historical
and musical. This is genuine biography in which a fascinating
subject has met his authorial match. Smith has granted Steiner the
long overdue biography he richly deserves."-Nicholas Meyer, Author
and Filmmaker
"The world owes Steven C. Smith an enormous debt of gratitude for
this book. Here, finally, is the life of a man whose influence is
felt every day in the unbroken line from Wagner, Mahler, and
Strauss into the scores of everyone who attempts to compose
orchestral music for the movies today. Years of ignorance have been
washed away to reveal this great composer's story, and the history
of Vienna in Hollywood-the very creation of the Hollywood Sound
itself-will
never be the same. Smith tells this extraordinary story to the
world-and for the first time." -John Mauceri, Founding Director,
Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, and author of For the Love of Music-A
Conductor's Guide to the Art of Listening
"Smith brilliantly captures in rich and colorful detail the life
and work of composer Max Steiner, whose contributions to the film
industry were nothing short of extraordinary. Steiner's music set
the template for all film composers who followed. Whenever I see
King Kong in which my mother Fay Wray starred, it's the music that
stirs in me feelings of terror and tenderness and which were
integral to the film becoming a classic. Now finally, we have
the
story of the genius behind that music." -Victoria Riskin, author,
Fay Wray and Robert Riskin: A Hollywood Memoir, and Former
President, Writers Guild of America West
"Steven Smith has mined the vast source material and unearthed an
array of evocative period photos, weaving these core elements into
a definitive account of Hollywood's most prolific and widely
celebrated film composer. This marvelous chronicle of Max Steiner's
life, from his Viennese origins to his spectacular career within
the movie industry, is at once deeply absorbing and painstakingly
thorough." -Noah Isenberg, author of We'll Always Have
Casablanca:
The Life, Legend, and Afterlife of Hollywood's Most Beloved
Movie
"After his definitive biography of Bernard Herrmann, Steven C.
Smith returns with a spectacularly researched and beautifully
written book that returns Max Steiner to his proper place in film
history after a long period of neglect. It reminds us of the
composer's many scoring innovations while also surprising us with
the largely untold saga of his sometimes charmed, sometimes tragic
life." -Jon Burlingame, author, The Music of James Bond
"In colorful prose and with finely detailed scenes...Smith adeptly
details the process of making films and Steiner's involvement in
scoring them...Filled with great detail of early Hollywood music,
Smith's biography serves as the definitive study of the composer."
-Publishers Weekly
"Smith has a keen eye for detail and a genuine appreciation for his
subject, deftly combining details of Steiner's personal life along
with compelling accounts of his work with a roster of Hollywood
notables and discussions of his composing methods. VERDICT: This
well-crafted biography will have film buffs applauding." -Carolyn
M. Mulac, Library Journal
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