Stanley Black

A composer and conductor who from the 1930s to the 1970s scored nearly 70 films, Stanley Black also served as a musical director for numerous other films and worked closely with the BBC and Associated British Film Studios. A native of London who began playing the piano at age seven, Black would later study at the Matthay School of Music. Following the BBC Symphony Orchestra's broadcast of his first composition at age 12, the burgeoning composer joined a Dixieland jazz band in 1929 and gained notoriety after winning a Melody Maker-sponsored arrangement contest later that same year. A subsequent trip to South America with Harry Roy found Black developing a taste for Latin-American music, and the influence would ultimately turn up in much of Black's later work. Black served in the Royal Air Force during World War II, and following the war he settled in for an extended position as conductor of the BBC Dance Orchestra. Participating in thousands of broadcasts and releasing solo albums in the following years, Black would begin a stint as the resident musical director at Associated British Film Studios in 1939, also creating music for Pathe newsreels. Winning an Ivor Novello award for his work on 1963's Summer Holiday, the composer would also score such popular films as The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961), Summer Holiday (1963), and Ken Russell's Valentino (1977). On November 26, 2003, Stanley Black died of natural causes in London. He was 89.

~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide