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120-402: André George Previn ( / ˈ p r ɛ v ɪ n / ; born Andreas Ludwig Priwin ; April 6, 1929 – February 28, 2019) was a German-American pianist, composer, and conductor. His career had three major genres: Hollywood films , jazz , and classical music . In each he achieved success, and the latter two were part of his life until the end. In movies, he arranged and composed music. In jazz, he

240-483: A Korean child whose age a physician's bone scan placed between six and eight years old and whose unknown birth date her adoptive parents estimated as October 8, 1970. Previn and Farrow divorced in 1979. Lark died on Christmas Day 2008, aged 35; reports at the time suggested she had died of AIDS-related pneumonia . In the aftermath of the scandal involving Soon-Yi and Mia Farrow's partner Woody Allen , Previn said of Soon-Yi, "She does not exist." Previn's longest marriage

360-619: A Wonderful Life , It Happened One Night , the original King Kong , Mutiny on the Bounty , Top Hat , City Lights , Red River , The Lady from Shanghai , Rear Window , On the Waterfront , Rebel Without a Cause , Some Like It Hot , and The Manchurian Candidate . The studio system and the Golden Age of Hollywood succumbed to two forces that developed in the late 1940s: In 1938, Walt Disney's Snow White and

480-559: A compromise with Arnold in October 1940 and signing a consent decree agreeing to, within three years: The "Little Three" ( Universal Studios , United Artists , and Columbia Pictures ), who did not own any theaters, refused to participate in the consent decree. A number of independent film producers were also unhappy with the compromise and formed a union known as the Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers and sued Paramount for

600-419: A computer and manipulate them digitally. The possibilities became apparent in director James Cameron 's Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), in images of the shape-changing character T-1000 . Computer graphics or CG advanced to a point where Jurassic Park (1993) was able to use the techniques to create realistic looking animals. Jackpot (2001) became the first film that was shot entirely in digital. In

720-1080: A conductor focused on standards of the Classical, Romantic and Modern eras. In opera, however, he recorded only Der Schauspieldirektor , Die Fledermaus , and Ravel 's two short operas, as well as his own A Streetcar Named Desire . He favored the symphonic music of Berlioz , Brahms and Strauss , and placed a special emphasis on violin and piano concertos and on ballets. Only a few of his recordings were of music before Haydn and Mozart (both favourites on his programmes) or of atonal or serial avant-garde pieces. In 20th-century music his repertory highlit specific composers of late Romanticism and Modernism: Barber , Britten , Gershwin , Korngold , Prokofiev , Rachmaninoff , Ravel, Shostakovich , Strauss, Vaughan Williams , Walton and Shapero . Previn recorded for RCA , EMI , Telarc and Deutsche Grammophon . Noteworthy as interpretations, for various reasons, are his recordings of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony (for RCA in 1965), Walton's First Symphony (1966),

840-654: A current pet care TV show, Lassie's Pet Vet on PBS stations in the United States. Lassie is one of only four animals (and one of very few fictional characters, such as Mickey Mouse , Kermit the Frog , and Bugs Bunny ) to be awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame —the others being silent-film stars Rin Tin Tin , Uggie and Strongheart . In 2005, the show business journal Variety named Lassie one of

960-417: A few months before she gave birth to Alicia. In 1959, he married Dory Langan . A singer-songwriter, she became widely known as a lyricist with whom Previn collaborated on several Academy Award –nominated film scores during their marriage. They separated in 1968 once she found out his affair with Mia Farrow , a family friend, had resulted in a pregnancy. Distressed at his infidelity, Dory was hospitalized for

1080-528: A homegrown supply of actors—lured west from the New York City stage after the introduction of sound films—to form one of the 20th century's most remarkable growth industries. At motion pictures' height of popularity in the mid-1940s, the studios were cranking out a total of about 400 movies a year, seen by an audience of 90 million Americans per week. Sound also became widely used in Hollywood in

1200-524: A lady in the audience greets him as "Mr Preview", tells the pair: "That's not the Queen, that's Mrs Mills !" Finally, he joins the pair at the end of the episode in singing " Bring Me Sunshine ". Previn was host and narrator of the 13-part 1991 documentary series Mozart on Tour , which focused on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 's travels and how his music developed through them. He also performed and conducted Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor, K. 491 , with

1320-668: A long relationship with the medium of television. He featured in Meet André Previn (1969) on London Weekend Television , the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show in 1971 and 1972 (BBC), André Previn's Music Night (with the London Symphony Orchestra ; three programmes in 1973, others in 1975 and 1976), and television interviews with other musicians. He made appearances on Call My Bluff and participated in documentaries about popular music and jazz during

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1440-640: A major film production center. In Colorado , Denver was home to the Art-O-Graf Film Company, and Walt Disney 's early Laugh-O-Gram Studio was based in Kansas City , Missouri . From 1908, Jacksonville, Florida's motion picture industry saw more than 30 silent film companies establish studios in town, including Kalem Studios , Metro Pictures (later MGM ), Edison Studios , Majestic Films, King-Bee Films Corporation , Vim Comedy Company , Norman Studios , Gaumont Film Company and

1560-572: A mental breakdown. Known professionally as Dory Previn, she resumed her career as a singer-songwriter. Her first album was On My Way to Where (1970), a critically acclaimed work whose confessional lyrics were described as "searingly honest"; it chronicled both her mental health struggles and the infidelity that she alleged had at once precipitated the end of her marriage to Previn and exacerbated her intermittent mental illness. In 2013, jazz singer Kate Dimbleby and pianist Naadia Sheriff revisited Dory Previn's musical reflections on her marriage to Previn in

1680-462: A national park. The series was primarily a traditionally animated (2D hand-drawn animated) TV series, though it also used some CGI animation. It was first seen in the United States starting in 2020 via the CBS All Access streaming service, then carried over to successor service Paramount+ . Lassie continues to make personal and TV show appearances as well as marketing a line of pet food and

1800-815: A number of theaters in the late 1920s, and would hold a monopoly on theaters in Detroit, Michigan . By the 1930s, almost all of the first-run metropolitan theaters in the United States were owned by the Big Five studios— MGM , Paramount Pictures , RKO , Warner Bros. , and 20th Century Fox . Motion picture companies operated under the studio system . The major studios kept thousands of people on salary—actors, producers, directors, writers, stunt men, crafts persons, and technicians. They owned or leased Movie Ranches in rural Southern California for location shooting of westerns and other large-scale genre films, and

1920-495: A performance of Edvard Grieg 's Piano Concerto with Eric Morecambe as the inept soloist, having been tricked into doing it by being told that Yehudi Menuhin would be his solo violinist. Playing the comedy straight, the annoyed Previn then remarks: "I'll go get my baton. It's in Chicago." His comic timing made Morecambe immediately realise the sketch would be a success. Later in the sketch Previn accuses Morecambe of playing "all

2040-450: A persuasive, moving jazz musician. [...] Despite his deep roots in symphonic music, Previn largely steered clear of Third Stream classicism in his jazz work, aiming more at an earthy, hard-swinging piano style at times reminiscent of Horace Silver . Long before his eventual retreat from his jazz work, Previn had become something of a popularizer of jazz rather than a serious practitioner of the music. At his best, however, his music reflected

2160-521: A set of still cameras placed in a row. Muybridge's accomplishment led inventors everywhere to attempt to make similar devices. In the United States , Thomas Edison was among the first to produce such a device, the kinetoscope and kinetograph . The history of cinema in the United States can trace its roots to the East Coast , where, at one time, Fort Lee, New Jersey , was the motion-picture capital of America. The American film industry began at

2280-550: A string quartet with soprano, a clarinet quintet, a quintet for horn and strings, a nonet, an Octet for Eleven (for eleven players), and three works for brass ensemble); several works for solo piano; dozens of songs (in English and German); a monodrama for soprano, string quartet and piano ( Penelope , completed just before he died); a musical each for New York and London ( Coco and The Good Companions ); and two successful operas. In his capacity as conductor, mainly, Previn enjoyed

2400-426: A strong indigenous feel for the jazz idiom. Dizzy Gillespie on Previn, said: He has the flow, you know, which a lot of guys don't have and won't ever get. Yeah. I heard him play and I knew. A lot of guys, they have the technique, the harmonic sense. They've got the perfect coordination. And, yeah, all that's necessary. But you need something more, you know? Even if you only make an oooooooo, like that, you got to have

2520-652: A time to theaters and use the lock-in to cover for releases of mediocre quality. Assistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold —a noted " trust buster " of the Roosevelt administration—took this opportunity to initiate proceedings against the eight largest Hollywood studios in July 1938 for violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act . The federal suit resulted in five of the eight studios (the "Big Five": Warner Bros. , MGM , Fox , RKO and Paramount ) reaching

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2640-402: A trio pianist, usually with bass and drums, collaborating with dozens of famed jazz instrumentalists. Previn also memorably filmed TV shows with Peterson (1974) and Fitzgerald (1979). Jazz critic and historian Ted Gioia wrote in his book about West Coast jazz , the scene to which Previn belonged: [His] projects varied greatly in terms of quality and jazz content, but at his best Previn could be

2760-401: A vacant lot near Georgia Street in downtown Los Angeles. While there, the company decided to explore new territories, traveling several miles north to Hollywood: a little village that was friendly and enjoyed the movie company filming there. Griffith then filmed the first movie ever shot in Hollywood, In Old California , a Biograph melodrama about California in the 19th century, when the state

2880-470: A year at engagements around the world, and included interviews with Previn and rehearsals for the opera. The film was issued on DVD in 2009 by Voiceprint Records; an earlier issue had cut 30 minutes from it. Previn was married five times. His first marriage, in 1952, was to jazz singer Betty Bennett , with whom he had two daughters, Claudia Previn Stasny . and Alicia Previn . Previn divorced Bennett in 1957,

3000-484: Is found in British writer Elizabeth Gaskell 's 1859 short story "The Half-brothers". In the story, Lassie is described as a female collie with "intelligent, apprehensive eyes" who rescues two half-brothers who are lost and dying in the snow. When the younger brother can no longer carry on, elder brother Gregory, Lassie's master, ties a handkerchief around Lassie's neck and sends her home. Lassie arrives home, and leads

3120-488: Is still typical of most films made in America today. While French filmmakers Auguste and Louis Lumière are generally credited with the birth of modern cinema, American cinema soon came to be a dominant force in the emerging industry. With more than 600 English-language films released annually as of 2017 , it has produced the fourth-largest number of films of any national cinema , after India , Japan , and China . While

3240-604: The Berlin Conservatory . In 1938, Previn's father was told that his son was no longer welcome at the conservatory, despite André receiving a full scholarship in recognition of his abilities, on the grounds that he was Jewish. In 1938, the family had applied for American visas and during the nine-month wait to obtain them, left Berlin for Paris. Previn's father enrolled his son into the Conservatoire de Paris where André learned music theory. On October 20, 1938,

3360-571: The Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles County, California . Director D. W. Griffith was central to the development of a film grammar . Orson Welles 's Citizen Kane (1941) is frequently cited in critics' polls as the greatest film of all time . The first recorded instance of photographs capturing and reproducing motion was a series of photographs of a running horse by Eadweard Muybridge , which he took in Palo Alto, California , using

3480-1107: The Kalem Company began using Fort Lee as a location for filming in the area, other filmmakers quickly followed. In 1909, a forerunner of Universal Studios , the Champion Film Company , built the first studio. Others quickly followed and either built new studios or leased facilities in Fort Lee. In the 1910s and 1920s , film companies such as the Independent Moving Pictures Company, Peerless Pictures Studios , Solax Studios , Eclair , Goldwyn Pictures Corporation , Star Film ( Georges Méliès ), World Film Company , Biograph Studios , Fox Film Corporation , Société Pathé Frères , Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. , Victor Film Company , and Selznick International Pictures were all making pictures in Fort Lee. Such notables as Mary Pickford got their start at Biograph Studios. In New York,

3600-703: The Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens , which was built during the silent film era, was used by the Marx Brothers and W.C. Fields . The Edison Studios were located in the Bronx . Chelsea, Manhattan , was also frequently used. Other Eastern cities, most notably Chicago and Cleveland , also served as early centers for film production. In the West, California was already quickly emerging as

3720-876: The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), serving in that post until 1979. During his LSO tenure, he and the LSO appeared on the BBC Television programme André Previn's Music Night . From 1975 to 1985, he was music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO) and, in turn, had another television series with the PSO entitled Previn and the Pittsburgh . He was then principal conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra from 1985 to 1991. In 1985, he became music director of

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3840-747: The Los Angeles Philharmonic (1985–1989), chief conductor of the Royal Philharmonic (1985–1992), and, after an avowed break from salaried posts, chief conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic (2002–2006). He also enjoyed a warm relationship with the Vienna Philharmonic . Previn was born in Berlin to a Jewish family, the second son and last of three children of Charlotte (née Epstein) and Jack Previn, who

3960-530: The Los Angeles Philharmonic . Although Previn's tenure with the orchestra was deemed satisfactory from a professional perspective, other conductors, including Kurt Sanderling , Simon Rattle , and Esa-Pekka Salonen , did a better job at selling out concerts. Previn clashed frequently with Ernest Fleischmann (the LAPO's Executive VP and General Manager), including the dispute when Fleischmann failed to consult Previn before naming Salonen as Principal Guest Conductor of

4080-497: The Lubin Manufacturing Company . Picture City, Florida was a planned site for a movie picture production center in the 1920s, but due to the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane , the idea collapsed and Picture City, Florida returned to its original name of Hobe Sound . An attempt to establish a film production center in Detroit also proved unsuccessful. The film patents wars of the early 20th century helped

4200-562: The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in one episode of the series, and in another episode conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance by Aleksandar Madžar of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 27 in B-flat major, K. 595 . Previn was the subject of a two-hour film by Tony Palmer entitled The Kindness of Strangers – after the closing words of his opera then in production, in 1998 – which followed Previn for

4320-485: The Vienna Philharmonic . Previn received Grammy Awards and nominations: Cinema of the United States The cinema of the United States , consisting mainly of major film studios (also known metonymically as Hollywood ), has remained a significant influence on the global film industry beginning in the early 20th century . Classical Hollywood cinema , which developed from 1910 to 1962,

4440-637: The antagonist and protagonist may be blurred. The roots of post-classical storytelling may be seen in film noir , in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), and in Hitchcock's storyline-shattering Psycho . The New Hollywood is the emergence of a new generation of film school-trained directors who had absorbed the techniques developed in Europe in the 1960s as a result of the French New Wave;

4560-407: The studios and Hollywood grew. Before World War I , films were made in several American cities, but filmmakers tended to gravitate towards southern California as the industry developed. They were attracted by the warm, predictable climate with reliable sunlight, which made it possible to film their films outdoors year-round alongside the varied scenery that was available. War damage contributed to

4680-655: The 1960s (beginning with Like Young: Secret Songs for Young Lovers , 1959, with David Rose and His Orchestra ). Following his performance on Shelly Manne 's recording Modern Jazz Performances of Songs from My Fair Lady in 1956, Previn released several albums of jazz interpretations of songs from broadway musicals as well as several solo piano recordings focused on the songbooks of popular composers ( André Previn Plays Songs by Vernon Duke , 1958; André Previn Plays Songs by Harold Arlen , 1960; Ballads. Solo Jazz Standards , 1996; Alone: Ballads for Solo Piano , 2007),

4800-538: The 1967 film Bonnie and Clyde marked the beginning of American cinema rebounding as well, as a new generation of films would afterwards gain success at the box offices as well. Filmmakers like Francis Ford Coppola , Steven Spielberg , George Lucas , Brian De Palma , Stanley Kubrick , Martin Scorsese , Roman Polanski , and William Friedkin came to produce fare that paid homage to the history of film and developed upon existing genres and techniques. Inaugurated by

4920-615: The 1969 release of Andy Warhol 's Blue Movie , the phenomenon of adult erotic films being publicly discussed by celebrities (like Johnny Carson and Bob Hope ), and taken seriously by critics (like Roger Ebert ), a development referred to, by Ralph Blumenthal of The New York Times , as " porno chic ", and later known as the Golden Age of Porn , began, for the first time, in modern American culture. According to award-winning author Toni Bentley , Radley Metzger 's 1976 film The Opening of Misty Beethoven , based on

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5040-577: The 1970s and 1980s. In the United Kingdom he worked on TV with the London Symphony Orchestra. In the U.S. the television program Previn and the Pittsburgh (1977) featured him in collaboration with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra . British TV audiences witnessed his comic acting skills when he was introduced as "Mr Andrew Preview" (or "Privet") on the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show in 1971. This involved his conducting

5160-412: The 1972 special as a bus conductor in a feature called "I worked with Morecambe and Wise and look what happened to me". He made a further appearance in their eighth series. In this sketch, he is tricked into visiting the pair again, and they suggest that if he works with them again, he could receive a knighthood ; he conducts a 1920s-style dance band as the pair sing, then meets them on stage and, after

5280-527: The 1990s had access to technological, political and economic innovations that had not been available in previous decades. Dick Tracy (1990) became the first 35 mm feature film with a digital soundtrack. Batman Returns (1992) was the first film to make use of the Dolby Digital six-channel stereo sound that has since become the industry standard. Computer-generated imagery was greatly facilitated when it became possible to transfer film images into

5400-515: The Apocalypse , Inside Daisy Clover , and Dead Ringer . Previn made dozens of jazz recordings, as both leader and sideman, primarily during two periods: from 1945 to 1967, and from 1989 to 2001, with just a handful of recordings in between or afterward. He also did crossover recordings with such classical singers as Eileen Farrell , Leontyne Price and Kiri Te Kanawa , as well as several easy-listening records with piano and orchestra in

5520-559: The Catholic watchdog organization The Legion of Decency —appalled by some of the provocative films and lurid advertising of the era later classified Pre-Code Hollywood —threatened a boycott of motion pictures if it did not go into effect. The films that did not obtain a seal of approval from the Production Code Administration had to pay a $ 25,000 fine (equivalent to $ 455,976 in 2023) and could not profit in

5640-688: The Fox Film Corporation owned the Fox Theatre . RKO (a 1928 merger between Keith-Orpheum Theaters and the Radio Corporation of America ) also responded to the Western Electric/ERPI monopoly over sound in films, and developed their own method, known as Photophone , to put sound in films. Paramount, which acquired Balaban and Katz in 1926, would answer to the success of Warner Bros. and RKO by purchasing

5760-523: The Hollywood antitrust case, as did the Little Three studios. The United States Supreme Court eventually ruled in United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc. that the major studios ownership of theaters and film distribution was a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act . As a result, the studios began to release actors and technical staff from their contracts with the studios. This changed

5880-466: The Hollywood studios. The Classical style began to emerge in 1913, was accelerated in 1917 after the U.S. entered World War I , and finally solidified when the film The Jazz Singer was released in 1927, ending the silent film era and increasing box-office profits for the film industry by introducing sound to feature films. Most Hollywood pictures adhered closely to a formula— Western , slapstick comedy , musical , animated cartoon , biographical —and

6000-551: The Lassie name and trademark from MGM and appeared with Pal (as "Lassie") at rodeos, fairs, and similar events across America in the early 1950s. In 1954, the television series Lassie debuted and, over the next 19 years, a succession of Pal's descendants appeared on the series. The "Lassie" character has appeared in radio, television, film, toys, comic books, animated series, juvenile novels, and other media. Pal's descendants continue to play Lassie today. An early depiction of Lassie

6120-553: The London cabaret show Beware of Young Girls: The Dory Previn Story . Previn's third marriage, in 1970, was to Mia Farrow, whom he began dating in 1968. Previn and Farrow had three biological children together — fraternal twins Matthew and Sascha, born before Previn and Farrow were married, and Fletcher, born in 1974. They then adopted Vietnamese infants Lark Song and Summer "Daisy" Song (born October 6, 1974), followed by Soon-Yi Previn ,

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6240-598: The Pittsburgh was nominated for three Emmy awards. Previn was appointed an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1996. (Not being a citizen of a Commonwealth realm , he was permitted to use the post-nominal letters KBE but was not styled "Sir André".) Previn received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1998 in recognition of his contributions to classical music and opera in

6360-498: The Seven Dwarfs was released during a run of lackluster films from the major studios, and quickly became the highest grossing film released to that point. Embarrassingly for the studios, it was an independently produced animated film that did not feature any studio-employed stars. This stoked already widespread frustration at the practice of block-booking , in which studios would only sell an entire year's schedule of films at

6480-512: The US film industry. They were able to make their mark in a brand-new business: the exhibition of short films in storefront theaters called nickelodeons , after their admission price of a nickel (five cents). Within a few years, men like Samuel Goldwyn , William Fox , Carl Laemmle , Adolph Zukor , Louis B. Mayer , and the Warner Brothers (Harry, Albert, Samuel, and Jack) had switched to

6600-623: The United States. In 2005 he was awarded the international Glenn Gould Prize and in 2008 won Gramophone magazine's Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in classical, film, and jazz music. In 2010, the Recording Academy honored Previn with a Lifetime Achievement Grammy . Previn died on February 28, 2019, at home in Manhattan at the age of 89. Previn's discography contains hundreds of recordings in film, jazz, classical music, theatre, and contemporary classical music. Because of

6720-473: The Vaughan Williams symphonies (1967–72), Rachmaninoff's Second Symphony (for EMI in 1970), Rachmaninoff's piano concertos (for Decca in 1970–71, with Vladimir Ashkenazy ), Walton's Belshazzar's Feast (EMI, 1972), Orff's Carmina Burana (1974) and Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1976), all with the London Symphony Orchestra ; and Strauss's horn concertos (for DG in 1996), with

6840-419: The actors who appeared in it; MGM , for example, claimed it had contracted "more stars than there are in heaven." Each studio had its own style and characteristic touches which made it possible to know this—a trait that rarely exists today. For example, To Have and Have Not (1944) is notable not only for the first pairing of actors Humphrey Bogart (1899–1957) and Lauren Bacall (1924–2014), but because it

6960-446: The ceremony; Previn played the piano, accompanying Sherman, who played the flute. Previn was involved in creating the music for over 50 films and won four Academy Awards for his work. Previn's career as a composer, conductor, and arranger at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios (MGM) began in 1946, while he was still in high school, after their music department noticed his work for a local radio program and hired him. Previn recalled that MGM

7080-399: The decline of the then-dominant European film industry, in favor of the United States , where infrastructure was still intact. The stronger early public health response to the 1918 flu epidemic by Los Angeles compared to other American cities reduced the number of cases there and resulted in a faster recovery, contributing to the increasing dominance of Hollywood over New York City. During

7200-506: The early New Hollywood films like Bonnie and Clyde and Easy Rider had been relatively low-budget affairs with amoral heroes and increased sexuality and violence, the enormous success enjoyed by Friedkin with The Exorcist , Spielberg with Jaws , Coppola with The Godfather and Apocalypse Now , Scorsese with Taxi Driver , Kubrick with 2001: A Space Odyssey , Polanski with Chinatown , and Lucas with American Graffiti and Star Wars , respectively helped to give rise to

7320-550: The early times of talkies, American studios found that their sound productions were rejected in foreign-language markets and even among speakers of other dialects of English. The synchronization technology was still too primitive for dubbing . One of the solutions was creating parallel foreign-language versions of Hollywood films. Around 1930, the American companies opened a studio in Joinville-le-Pont , France, where

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7440-613: The end of the 19th century, with the construction of Thomas Edison's " Black Maria ", the first motion-picture studio in West Orange, New Jersey . The cities and towns on the Hudson River and Hudson Palisades offered land at costs considerably less than New York City across the river, and benefited greatly as a result of the phenomenal growth of the film industry at the turn of the 20th century. The industry began attracting both capital and innovative work forces. In 1907, when

7560-528: The end of their careers or used the same creative teams on their films so that a DeMille film still looked like one whether it was made in 1932 or 1956. Post-classical cinema is the changing methods of storytelling in the New Hollywood. It has been argued that new approaches to drama and characterization played upon audience expectations acquired in the classical period: chronology may be scrambled, storylines may feature " twist endings ", and lines between

7680-617: The eventual shift of virtually all filmmaking to the West Coast by the 1930s. At the time, Thomas Edison owned almost all the patents relevant to motion picture production and movie producers on the East Coast acting independently of Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company were often sued or enjoined by Edison and his agents while movie makers working on the West Coast could work independently of Edison's control. In Los Angeles,

7800-477: The example for other national film industries. In 1878, Eadweard Muybridge demonstrated the power of photography to capture motion. In 1894, the world's first commercial motion-picture exhibition was given in New York City , using Thomas Edison 's kinetoscope and kinetograph. In the following decades, the production of silent films greatly expanded, studios formed and migrated to California , and

7920-509: The family left Paris and sailed to New York City. Their journey continued to Los Angeles, arriving on November 26. His father's second cousin Charles Previn was music director for Universal Studios . Previn became a naturalized US citizen in 1943. He learned English, which was his third language after German and French, through comic books and other reading materials with a dictionary, and watching films. In 1946 he graduated from Beverly Hills High School and performed with Richard M. Sherman at

8040-489: The film Titanic , Cameron wanted to push the boundary of special effects with his film, and enlisted Digital Domain and Pacific Data Images to continue the developments in digital technology which the director pioneered while working on The Abyss and Terminator 2: Judgment Day . Many previous films about the RMS Titanic shot water in slow motion , which did not look wholly convincing. Cameron encouraged his crew to shoot their 45-foot-long (14 m) miniature of

8160-418: The films and stories they told became much longer. The United States produced the world's first sync-sound musical film , The Jazz Singer , in 1927, and was at the forefront of sound-film development in the following decades. It was fully released to the public on October 6, 1927. Since the early 20th century, the U.S. film industry has primarily been based in and around the thirty-mile zone centered in

8280-437: The flow. He was music director of the Houston Symphony Orchestra , the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra , the Los Angeles Philharmonic , and the Oslo Philharmonic , as well as the principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra . In 1967, Previn succeeded Sir John Barbirolli as music director of the Houston Symphony Orchestra . In 1968, he began his tenure as principal conductor of

8400-459: The foreign language. The Spanish-language crews included people like Luis Buñuel , Enrique Jardiel Poncela , Xavier Cugat , and Edgar Neville . The productions were not very successful in their intended markets, due to the following reasons: Classical Hollywood cinema , or the Golden Age of Hollywood, is defined as a technical and narrative style characteristic of American cinema from 1913 to 1962, during which thousands of movies were issued from

8520-508: The huge number of recordings, the following lists are necessarily highly selective. A full discography (including LP/CD record codes) is available in Frédéric Döhl: André Previn. Musikalische Vielseitigkeit und ästhetische Erfahrung , Stuttgart 2012, pp. 295–319. Most of the films which incorporate Previn's music are still available as videos/DVDs and/or as soundtrack records. Some of his soundtracks have been reissued in recent years, including those from Elmer Gantry , Four Horsemen of

8640-544: The late 1920s. After The Jazz Singer , the first film with synchronized voices was successfully released as a Vitaphone talkie in 1927, Hollywood film companies would respond to Warner Bros. and begin to use Vitaphone sound—which Warner Bros. owned until 1928—in future films. By May 1928, Electrical Research Product Incorporated (ERPI), a subsidiary of the Western Electric company, gained a monopoly over film sound distribution. A side effect of these " talkies "

8760-642: The late recording of songs by Harold Arlen with singer Sylvia McNair and bass player David Finck ( Come Rain or Shine: The Harold Arlen Songbook , 1996), and his TV shows with Oscar Peterson (1974) – which Marlon Brando called "one of the greatest hours I ever saw on television" – and Ella Fitzgerald (1979) respectively. with Buddy Bregman with Benny Carter with Michael Feinstein with Helen Humes with Barney Kessel with Shelly Manne with The Mitchells: Red Mitchell , Whitey Mitchell and Blue Mitchell with Lyle Murphy with Pete Rugolo Previn's recorded repertory as

8880-472: The major studios owned hundreds of theaters in cities and towns across the nation in 1920 film theaters that showed their films and that were always in need of fresh material. In 1930, MPPDA President Will Hays created the Hays (Production) Code , which followed censorship guidelines and went into effect after government threats of censorship expanded by 1930. However, the code was never enforced until 1934, after

9000-567: The modern " blockbuster ", and induced studios to focus ever more heavily on trying to produce enormous hits. In the US, the PG-13 rating was introduced in 1984 to accommodate films that straddled the line between PG and R, which was mainly due to the controversies surrounding the violent content of the PG films Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Gremlins (both 1984). Film   makers in

9120-566: The monopoly they still had over the Detroit Theaters—as Paramount was also gaining dominance through actors like Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard, Veronica Lake, Betty Hutton, crooner Bing Crosby, Alan Ladd, and longtime actor for studio Gary Cooper too- by 1942. The Big Five studios did not meet the requirements of the Consent of Decree during WWII, without major consequence, but after the war ended they joined Paramount as defendants in

9240-516: The most successful film of its time, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs . This distinction was promptly topped in 1939 when Selznick International created what is still, when adjusted for inflation, the most successful film of all time in Gone with the Wind . Many film historians have remarked upon the many great works of cinema that emerged from this period of highly regimented filmmaking. One reason this

9360-533: The movie-making process. Nestor Studios of Bayonne, New Jersey , built the first studio in the Hollywood neighborhood in 1911. Nestor Studios, owned by David and William Horsley, later merged with Universal Studios; and William Horsley's other company, Hollywood Film Laboratory, is now the oldest existing company in Hollywood, presently called the Hollywood Digital Laboratory. California 's more hospitable and cost-effective climate led to

9480-489: The music of more than fifty films and would win four Academy Awards . He won ten Grammy Awards , for recordings in all three areas of his career, and then one more, for lifetime achievement . He served as music director of the Houston Symphony Orchestra (1967–1969), principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra (1968–1979), music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (1976–1984), of

9600-607: The national cinemas of the United Kingdom , Canada , Australia , and New Zealand also produce films in the same language, they are not part of the Hollywood system. Because of this, Hollywood has also been considered a transnational cinema , and has produced multiple language versions of some titles, often in Spanish or French. Contemporary Hollywood often outsources production to the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The major film studios of Hollywood are

9720-567: The orchestra, complete with a tour of Japan. As a result of Previn's objections, Salonen's title and Japanese tour were withdrawn; however, shortly thereafter, in April 1989, Previn resigned. Four months later, Salonen was named Music Director Designate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, officially taking the post of music director in October 1992. Previn was music director of the Oslo Philharmonic from 2002 to 2006, and in 2009 he

9840-511: The pandemic, public health officials temporarily closed movie theaters in some jurisdictions, large studios suspended production for weeks at a time, and some actors came down with the flu. This caused major financial losses and severe difficulties for small studios, but the industry as a whole more than recovered during the Roaring Twenties . In the early 20th century, when the medium was new, many Jewish immigrants found employment in

9960-437: The paradigm of film making by the major Hollywood studios, as each could have an entirely different cast and creative team. The decision resulted in the gradual loss of the characteristics which made Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios, Columbia Pictures, RKO Pictures, and 20th Century Fox films immediately identifiable. Certain movie people, such as Cecil B. DeMille , either remained contract artists until

10080-477: The play Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (and its derivative, My Fair Lady ), and due to attaining a mainstream level in storyline and sets, is considered the "crown jewel" of this ' Golden Age '. At the height of his fame in the early 1970s, Charles Bronson was the world's No. 1 box office attraction, commanding $ 1 million per film. In the 1970s, the films of New Hollywood filmmakers were often both critically acclaimed and commercially successful. While

10200-516: The previous year he had composed his Violin Concerto . They announced their divorce in August 2006, but continued to work together in concerts afterwards. Previn was nominated for 11 Academy Awards . He won four times, in 1958, 1959, 1963 and 1964. He is one of the few composers to have accomplished the feat of winning back-to-back Oscars, and one of only two to have done so on two occasions. Previn

10320-402: The primary source of the most commercially successful and most commercially successful movies in the world. Hollywood is considered to be the oldest film industry, where the earliest film studios and production companies emerged. It is the birthplace of various genres of cinema —among them comedy , drama , action , musical , romance , horror , science fiction , and epic —and has set

10440-629: The production side of the business. Soon they were the heads of a new kind of enterprise: the movie studio . The US had at least two female directors, producers and studio heads in these early years: Lois Weber and French-born Alice Guy-Blaché . They also set the stage for the industry's internationalism; the industry is often accused of Amero centric provincialism . Other movie makers arrived from Europe after World War I: directors like Ernst Lubitsch , Alfred Hitchcock , Fritz Lang and Jean Renoir ; and actors like Rudolph Valentino , Marlene Dietrich , Ronald Colman , and Charles Boyer . They joined

10560-449: The same creative teams often worked on films made by the same studio. For example, Cedric Gibbons and Herbert Stothart always worked on MGM films, Alfred Newman worked at 20th Century Fox for twenty years, Cecil B. De Mille 's films were almost all made at Paramount , and director Henry King 's films were mostly made for 20th Century Fox . At the same time, one could usually guess which studio made which film, largely because of

10680-477: The same sets and wardrobe and even mass scenes were used for different time-sharing crews. Also, foreign unemployed actors, playwrights, and winners of photogenic contests were chosen and brought to Hollywood, where they shot parallel versions of the English-language films. These parallel versions had a lower budget, were shot at night and were directed by second-line American directors who did not speak

10800-567: The scale of George Lucas 's $ 1 billion prequel to the Star Wars Trilogy , The Blair Witch Project earned the distinction of being the most profitable film of all time, in terms of percentage gross. Lassie Knight's novel was filmed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1943 as Lassie Come Home , with a dog named Pal playing Lassie. Pal then appeared with the stage name "Lassie" in six other MGM feature films through 1951. Pal's owner and trainer, Rudd Weatherwax , then acquired

10920-438: The search party to the boys. When they arrive Gregory is dead, but his younger half-brother is saved. Thus, Gaskell apparently originated the character Lassie and, at the same time, defined the "Lassie saves the day" storyline that is the essence of subsequent Lassie tales. According to writer Nigel Clarke in the "Shipwreck Guide to Dorset and South Devon", the original Lassie that inspired so many films and television episodes

11040-517: The secure job and good pay, he had come to feel increasingly confined, and consequently desired to pursue classical music outside of film scores. He resigned from MGM at 32, wanting "to gamble with whatever talent I might have had". His break with the film world in the 1960s, however, was not as complete and thorough as he would later claim. During this period, Previn won a 1964 Academy Award for My Fair Lady . His film work continued until 1975's Rollerball . Over his multi-decade film career, Previn

11160-473: The ship as if "we're making a commercial for the White Star Line". Even The Blair Witch Project (1999), a low-budget indie horror film by Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick , was a huge financial success. Filmed on a budget of just $ 35,000, without any big stars or special effects, the film grossed $ 248 million with the use of modern marketing techniques and online promotion. Though not on

11280-499: The spread of film companies to other parts of the US, outside New York. Many filmmakers worked with equipment for which they did not own the rights to use. Therefore, filming in New York could be dangerous, as it was close to Edison's company headquarters, and close to the agents the company sent out to seize cameras. An alternative was Los Angeles , which had mild winters, a large selection of places to film, and, most importantly, it

11400-451: The studios in order to achieve their artistic visions. The apogee of the studio system may have been the year 1939, which saw the release of such classics as The Wizard of Oz , Gone with the Wind , Stagecoach , Mr. Smith Goes to Washington , Wuthering Heights , Only Angels Have Wings , Ninotchka and Midnight . Among the other films from the Golden Age period that are now considered to be classics: Casablanca , It's

11520-727: The theaters, as the MPPDA controlled every theater in the country through the Big Five studios. Throughout the 1930s, as well as most of the golden age, MGM dominated the film screen and had the top stars in Hollywood, and they were also credited for creating the Hollywood star system altogether. Some MGM stars included "King of Hollywood" Clark Gable , Lionel Barrymore , Jean Harlow , Norma Shearer , Greta Garbo , Joan Crawford , Jeanette MacDonald , Gene Raymond , Spencer Tracy , Judy Garland , and Gene Kelly . Another great achievement of American cinema during this era came through Walt Disney's animation company . In 1937, Disney created

11640-666: The time was an independent city. In the Sultan's Power, directed by Boggs for Selig Polyscope Company, also starring Bosworth, is considered the first film shot entirely in Los Angeles, with shooting at 7th and Olive Streets, in 1909. In early 1910, director D. W. Griffith was sent by the Biograph Company to the West Coast with his acting troupe, consisting of actors: Blanche Sweet , Lillian Gish , Mary Pickford , Lionel Barrymore and others. They started filming on

11760-572: The wrong notes"; Morecambe grits his teeth, grabs Previn by the lapels, and retorts that he has been playing "all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order". Previn recalled in 2005 that people in Britain still remember the sketch years later: "Taxi drivers still call me Mr Preview". He later said he was happy that the sketch meant as much to everyone else as it did to him, and that several parts of it were (uncharacteristically for Morecambe and Wise) improvised. Previn later appeared in

11880-474: Was "looking for somebody who was talented, fast, and cheap and, because I was a kid, I was all three. So they hired me to do piecework and I evidently did it very well." His first official credit was for an entry in the Lassie series, The Sun Comes Up (1949), which much later he thought was "the most inept score you ever heard" after seeing a television rerun. While a full-time employee at MGM in 1950, Previn

12000-455: Was a celebrated trio pianist , a piano-accompanist to singers of standards , and pianist-interpreter of songs from the " Great American Songbook ". In classical music, he also performed as a pianist but gained television fame as a conductor, and during his last thirty years created his legacy as a composer of art music . Before the age of twenty, Previn began arranging and composing for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer . He would go on to be involved in

12120-597: Was a lawyer, judge, and music teacher born in Graudenz , then in Germany but now in Poland. The eldest son, Steve Previn , became a film director. The year of Previn's birth is disputed. Whereas most published reports give 1929, Previn himself stated that 1930 was his birth year. All three children received piano lessons and Previn was the one who enjoyed them from the start and displayed the most talent. At six, he enrolled at

12240-605: Was a rough-haired crossbreed who saved the life of a sailor during World War I . Half collie, Lassie was owned by the landlord of the Pilot Boat, a pub in the port of Lyme Regis . On New Year's Day in 1915 the Royal Navy battleship Formidable was torpedoed by a German submarine off Start Point in South Devon, with the loss of more than 500 men. In a storm that followed the accident, a life raft containing bodies

12360-440: Was adapted into a feature film, Lassie Come Home , by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) that starred Roddy McDowall and Elizabeth Taylor . The movie was a hit and enjoyed favorable critical response. MGM followed this with several additional films, including a sequel entitled Son of Lassie (1945), starring Peter Lawford and June Lockhart , and Courage of Lassie with Elizabeth Taylor. A radio series , Lassie Radio Show ,

12480-441: Was also created, airing until 1949. Between 1954–1973, the television series Lassie was broadcast, with Lassie initially residing on a farm with a young male master. In the eleventh season, it changed to U.S. Forest Service rangers as her companions, then the collie was on her own for a season before ending the series with Lassie residing at a ranch for orphaned children. The series was the recipient of two Emmy Awards before it

12600-422: Was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of Tokyo's NHK Symphony Orchestra . André Previn left two concert overtures, several tone poems, 14 concerti, a symphony for strings, incidental music to a British play; a varied body of chamber music (six violin sonatas, other scores for violin and piano; sonatas for bassoon, cello, clarinet, flute and oboe, each with piano; a waltz for two oboes and piano, three other trios,

12720-600: Was blown along the coast to Lyme Regis. In helping to deal with the crisis, the local pub in Lyme Regis, called the Pilot Boat, offered its cellar as a mortuary. When the bodies had been laid out on the stone floor, Lassie, a crossbred collie owned by the pub owner, found her way down amongst the bodies, and she began to lick the face of one of the victims, Able Seaman John Cowan. She stayed beside him for more than half an hour, nuzzling him and keeping him warm with her fur. To everyone's astonishment, Cowan eventually stirred. He

12840-580: Was canceled in 1973. Lassie won several PATSY Awards (an award for animal actors). A second series followed in the 1980s. In 1997, Canadian production company Cinar Inc. produced a new Lassie television series for the Animal Planet network in the U.S. and YTV in Canada. It ran until 1999. In 2005, a remake of the original Lassie Come Home movie was produced in the United Kingdom . Starring Peter O'Toole and Samantha Morton , Lassie

12960-511: Was claimed as the first to have been filmed in Los Angeles , in 1907. A plaque was unveiled by the city, in 1957, at Dearden's flagship store on the corner of Main Street and 7th Street, to mark the filming on the site when it had been a Chinese laundry. Bosworth's widow suggested the city had got the date and location wrong, and that the film was actually shot in nearby Venice , which at

13080-620: Was created by English author Eric Knight in Lassie Come-Home , first published as a short story in The Saturday Evening Post in 1938 and later as a full-length novel in 1940. Set in the Depression-era England , the novel depicts the lengthy journey a rough collie makes to be reunited with her young Yorkshire master after her family is forced to sell her for money. In 1943, the novel

13200-640: Was drafted into the military. Beginning in 1951, while stationed with the Sixth Army Band at the Presidio of San Francisco , Previn took private conducting lessons for two years from Pierre Monteux , then conductor of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra , lessons which Previn valued highly. In 1953, Previn returned to Hollywood and focused his attention on film scores and jazz. Previn stayed at MGM for 16 years, but despite

13320-499: Was his fourth. In January 1982, he married Heather Sneddon. They had a son, Lucas Alexander, and an adopted daughter, Li-An Mary. Previn wrote a brief memoir of his early years in Hollywood , No Minor Chords , which was published in 1991, edited by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and dedicated to Heather. This marriage ended in divorce after 17 years. His fifth marriage, in 2002, was to the German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter , for whom in

13440-582: Was involved in the music of over 50 movies as composer, conductor, and/or performer. Previn described himself as a musician who played jazz, rather than a jazz musician. Nevertheless, he proved to be a gifted jazz-piano interpreter and arranger of songs from the " Great American Songbook ", winning the respect of prominent dedicated jazz artists. He separately worked as piano-accompanist to singers of jazz standards, from Ella Fitzgerald to Doris Day , recording prolifically. And, like Oscar Peterson , whom he admired tremendously, and Bill Evans , he worked often as

13560-501: Was only 90 miles to the border of Mexico , in case they needed to run if Edison's enforcement agents found them. By 1912, most major film companies had set up production facilities in Southern California , near or in Los Angeles , because of the region's favorable year-round weather. The 1908 Selig Polyscope Company production of The Count of Monte Cristo , directed by Francis Boggs and starring Hobart Bosworth ,

13680-464: Was possible is that, with so many movies being made, not everyone had to be a big hit. A studio could gamble on a medium-budget feature with a good script and relatively unknown actors: Citizen Kane , directed by Orson Welles (1915–1985) and often regarded as the greatest film of all time , fits this description. In other cases, strong-willed directors like Howard Hawks (1896–1977), Alfred Hitchcock (1899–1980), and Frank Capra (1897–1991) battled

13800-468: Was released in 2006. Additionally, two animated TV series featuring the canine were produced. The first was Lassie's Rescue Rangers , created by Filmation Associates , which aired on ABC from 1973 to 1975. Nearly four decades later, a new animated series titled The New Adventures of Lassie was co-produced by Superprod and Classic Media , in which Lassie was owned by the Parker family and lived in

13920-410: Was taken to hospital and went on to make a full recovery. He visited Lassie again when he returned to thank all who saved his life. When the officers heard the story of Lassie and what she did to rescue Cowan, they told it again and again to any reporter who would listen as it was inspirational and heart-warming. Hollywood got hold of the story, and so a star was born. The fictional character of Lassie

14040-608: Was that many actors who had made their careers in silent films suddenly found themselves out of work, as they often had bad voices or could not remember their lines. Meanwhile, in 1922, US politician Will H. Hays left politics and formed the movie studio boss organization known as the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA). The organization became the Motion Picture Association of America after Hays retired in 1945. In

14160-555: Was the first person in the history of the Academy Awards to receive three nominations in one year (for the 1960 awards ). In 1970 he was nominated for a Tony Award as part of Coco 's nomination for Best Musical . In 1974, he composed the musical score for The Good Companions starring John Mills in London. In 1977 he became an Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music . The 1977 television show Previn and

14280-499: Was under Mexican rule . Griffith stayed there for months and made several films before returning to New York. Also in 1910, Selig Polyscope Company of Chicago established the first film studio in the Los Angeles area in Edendale , and the first studio in Hollywood opened in 1912. After hearing about Griffith's success in Hollywood, in 1913, many movie-makers headed west to avoid the fees imposed by Thomas Edison , who owned patents on

14400-649: Was written by two future winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature : Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961), the author of the novel on which the script was nominally based, and William Faulkner (1897–1962), who worked on the screen adaptation. After The Jazz Singer was released in 1927, Warner Bros. gained huge success and were able to acquire their own string of movie theaters after purchasing Stanley Theaters and First National Productions in 1928. In contrast, Loews theaters owned MGM since forming in 1924, while

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