Oliver Wallace

English-American composer (1887–1963)
Oliver Wallace
Background information
Born(1887-08-06)August 6, 1887
London, England, UK
DiedSeptember 15, 1963(1963-09-15) (aged 76)
Los Angeles, California, US
GenresFilm score, musical theatre
Occupation(s)Composer
Years active1911–63
Musical artist

Oliver George Wallace (August 6, 1887 – September 15, 1963) was an English composer and conductor.[1] He was especially known for his film music compositions, which were written for many animation, documentary, and feature films from Walt Disney Studios.[2]

Biography

Wallace was born on August 6, 1887, in London. After completing his musical training, he went to the United States in 1904, becoming a US citizen ten years later.[1] He initially worked primarily on the West Coast in Seattle as a conductor of theater orchestras and as an organist accompanying silent films. At the same time, he also made a name as a songwriter, writing tunes such as the popular "Hindustan [de]". With the advent of the talking film era, he worked increasingly for Hollywood film studios in the 1930s.

In 1936 he joined Disney Studios and quickly became one of the most important composers in the studio for animated short films. He provided the music for 139 of these shorts. One of his best-known pieces is the song "Der Fuehrer's Face" from the 1942 Donald Duck propaganda cartoon, though he was uncredited. This parody of a Horst Wessel song was, mainly through the version by Spike Jones and His City Slickers, one of the biggest hits during the Second World War. Other shorts he scored included Ben and Me (1953), about Benjamin Franklin and a mouse, and the Oscar-winning Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom (1953), the first cartoon to use the new CinemaScope process. He also appeared in live action reference footage for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), posing as a live action model for two of the seven dwarfs that were stacked on top of each other, Dopey and Sneezy. He also did the whistling voice for Ichabod Crane as he’s riding home on his horse in The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949).

Walt Disney also had Wallace score full-length films for the studios for over 27 years. He started writing and orchestrating the score for Dumbo (1941), for which he, together with Frank Churchill, won his first and only Oscar in 1942.[3] He went on to score Victory Through Air Power (1943), The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949), Cinderella (1950) along with Paul J. Smith, Alice in Wonderland (1951), Peter Pan (1953), and White Wilderness (1958). His last work for a Disney animated feature was Lady and the Tramp (1955). He received four other Oscar nominations for the music to Victory Through Air Power with Edward H. Plumb and Paul J. Smith (losing to Alfred Newman for The Song of Bernadette), Cinderella with Paul J. Smith (losing to Adolph Deutsch and Roger Edens for Annie Get Your Gun), Alice in Wonderland (losing to Johnny Green and Saul Chaplin for An American in Paris), and White Wilderness (losing to Dimitri Tiomkin for The Old Man and the Sea). A common characteristic of all these productions was the cooperation of several composers in the creation of the music. Wallace understood this and integrated leitmotiv-like elements from the individual songs into the film scores.

When the Disney studios began to increasingly produce full-length feature films, Wallace also wrote scores for these. In Darby O'Gill and the Little People (1959), Wallace wrote not only the score but also set the Lawrence Edward Watkin-penned popular songs "Pretty Irish Girl" and "The Wishing Song". In Toby Tyler, or Ten Weeks with a Circus (1959), he appeared as an actor, playing the conductor of the circus band.

Starting with Seal Island (1948), Wallace also specialized in musical accompaniments for Disney documentaries, including nearly all the films for the "People and Places" series and some of the True-Life Adventures. The music of White Wilderness (1958) was even nominated for an Oscar in 1959, a rare feat for a documentary film.

Overall, Wallace contributed music to almost over 150 Walt Disney productions.[2] He worked for Disney studios for 27 years.[4] He remained active in the studio in Los Angeles until shortly before his death at a Burbank, California hospital on September 15, 1963, at the age of 76.[4] In 2008, he was posthumously honored with a Disney Legends award.[5]

Filmography

This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (July 2018)

Most of the films were scored in collaboration with other composers.

Film scores

Animated Shorts

Actor

References

  1. ^ a b Home Front Heroes: A Biographical Dictionary of Americans During Wartime, Volume 3, ed. Benjamin F. Shearer (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007), p. 836
  2. ^ a b Thomas S. Hischak, The Encyclopedia of Film Composers (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), pp. 691–693,
  3. ^ "1941 (14th)". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Retrieved June 4, 2015.[permanent dead link]
  4. ^ a b "Noted Composer Oliver Wallace Is Dead at Age 76". Sarasota Journal. Associated Press. September 17, 1963. Retrieved June 4, 2015.
  5. ^ "Barbara Walters And Frank Gifford Among 11 Honorees To Receive Prestigious Disney Legends Awards", US Fed News Service, Including US State News, The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd. (2008),Archived 2002-03-31 at the Wayback Machine

External links

  • Oliver Wallace at IMDb
Awards for Oliver Wallace
1930s
1940s
1950s
1960s
1970s
1980s
1990s
2000s
2010s
2020s
  • v
  • t
  • e
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
  • Chuck Abbott*
  • Milt Albright
  • Hideo Amemiya*
  • Hideo Aramaki
  • Chuck Boyajian*
  • Charles Boyer
  • Randy Bright*
  • James Cora
  • Robert Jani*
  • Mary Jones
  • Art Linkletter
  • Mary Anne Mang
  • Steve Martin
  • Tom Nabbe
  • Jack Olsen*
  • Cicely Rigdon
  • William Sullivan
  • Jack Wagner*
  • Vesey Walker*
2006
2007
2008
2009
* Awarded posthumously
Authority control databases Edit this at Wikidata
International
  • ISNI
  • VIAF
National
  • Spain
  • France
  • BnF data
  • Germany
  • Italy
  • Israel
  • Belgium
  • United States
  • Japan
  • Australia
  • Greece
  • Netherlands
  • Poland
Academics
  • CiNii
Artists
  • MusicBrainz
People
  • Trove
Other
  • SNAC
  • IdRef