50-456: " Moon River " is a song composed by Henry Mancini with lyrics by Johnny Mercer . It was originally performed by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's , winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song . The song also won the 1962 Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year . In 1999, Mancini's recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame . The song has been recorded by many other artists. It became
100-467: A Golden Globe , and twenty Grammy Awards , plus a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995. His works include the theme and soundtrack for the Peter Gunn television series as well as the music for The Pink Panther film series (" The Pink Panther Theme ") and " Moon River " from Breakfast at Tiffany's . The Music from Peter Gunn won the inaugural Grammy Award for Album of
150-431: A child, he had picked huckleberries in summer, and he connected them with a carefree childhood and Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn . Mercer's original title for the song was "Blue River", reflecting the color of huckleberries. Although an instrumental version is played over the film's opening titles, the lyrics are first heard in a scene where Paul "Fred" Varjak ( George Peppard ) discovers Holly Golightly (Hepburn) singing
200-554: A household name among artists of easy listening music. Mancini's earliest recordings in the 1950s and early 1960s were of the jazz idiom; with the success of Peter Gunn , Mr. Lucky , and Breakfast at Tiffany's , Mancini shifted to recording primarily his own music in record albums and film soundtracks. (Relatively little of his music was written for recordings compared to the amount that was written for film and television.) Beginning with his 1969 hit arrangement of Nino Rota's A Time for Us (as his only Billboard Hot 100 top 10 entry,
250-519: A list of some of his film and television themes. Note: Most of Mancini's scores were not released on LP soundtrack albums. His TV movie music albums were not soundtrack albums but are titled "Music from ..." or "Music from the Motion Picture ..." He routinely retained the rights to his music. Mancini's contracts allowed him to release his own albums for which he rearranged the score music into arrangements more appropriate for listening outside of
300-669: A longstanding partnership was Stanley Donen ( Charade , Arabesque , Two for the Road ). Mancini also composed for Howard Hawks ( Man's Favorite Sport? , Hatari! – which included the " Baby Elephant Walk "), Martin Ritt ( The Molly Maguires ), Vittorio de Sica ( Sunflower ), Norman Jewison ( Gaily, Gaily ), Paul Newman ( Sometimes a Great Notion , The Glass Menagerie ) , Stanley Kramer ( Oklahoma Crude ), George Roy Hill ( The Great Waldo Pepper ), Arthur Hiller ( Silver Streak ), Ted Kotcheff ( Who Is Killing
350-475: A pianist in the 1967 film Gunn , based on the Peter Gunn television series. In the 1966 Pink Panther cartoon Pink, Plunk, Plink , the panther commandeered an orchestra and proceeded to conduct Mancini's theme for the series. At the end, the shot switched to rare live action, and Mancini was seen alone applauding in the audience. Mancini also made a brief appearance in the title sequence of 1993's Son of
400-459: A romantic song in which the romantic partner is the idea of romance." An inlet near Savannah, Georgia , Johnny Mercer's hometown, was named Moon River in honor of him and this song. Mercer and Mancini wrote the song for Audrey Hepburn to sing in the film Breakfast at Tiffany's . The lyrics, written by Mercer, are reminiscent of his childhood in Savannah, Georgia , including its waterways. As
450-829: A scholarship at UCLA and some of his library and works are archived in the music library at UCLA, with additional materials preserved at the Library of Congress. In 1996, the Henry Mancini Institute, an academy for young music professionals, was founded by Jack Elliott in Mancini's honor, and was later under the direction of composer-conductor Patrick Williams . By the mid-2000s, however, the institute could not sustain itself and closed its doors on December 30, 2006. The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Foundation "Henry Mancini Music Scholarship" has been awarded annually since 2001. In 2005,
500-484: A similar format to Welk's, The Mancini Generation , which aired in syndication during the 1972–73 season. Mancini recorded over 90 albums, in styles ranging from big band to light classical to pop . Eight of these albums were certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America . He had a 20-year contract with RCA Victor , resulting in 60 commercial record albums that made him
550-415: A single, but it charted as an LP track that he recorded for Columbia on a hit album of 1962, Moon River and Other Great Movie Themes . In 2022, Williams' rendition of the song was selected for preservation in the Library of Congress. The song's success was responsible for relaunching Mercer's career as a songwriter, which had stalled in the mid-1950s because rock and roll had replaced jazz standards as
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#1732782371159600-506: A smaller orchestra than that used for the actual scoring (ex: Dimitri Tiomkin's score to The Alamo ). However, many Hollywood musicians were featured on Mancini's albums recorded in RCA's Hollywood recording studios and faux "Original Soundtrack" albums. Eventually some of his scores and faux "Original Soundtrack" scores by numerous composers were released in limited edition CDs. AFI%27s 100 Years...100 Songs AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs
650-468: A teacher. At age 12, he began studying piano and orchestral arrangement under Pittsburgh concert pianist and Stanley Theatre (now Benedum Center ) conductor Max Adkins. Not only did Mancini produce arrangements for the Stanley Theatre bands, but he also wrote an arrangement for Benny Goodman , an up-and-coming bandleader introduced to him by Adkins. According to Mancini biographer John Caps,
700-541: Is a list of the top 100 songs in American cinema of the 20th century. The list was unveiled by the American Film Institute on June 22, 2004, in a CBS television special hosted by John Travolta , who appeared in two films honored by the list, Saturday Night Fever and Grease . The list was created by a panel of jurors selected by AFI, who voted from a list of 400 nominated songs. Singin' in
750-644: The Billboard Hot 100 chart and number 3 Easy Listening in December, two weeks before Mancini's recording reached the same chart ranking. British singer Danny Williams had a hit version of the song that reached number one in the UK in the final week of 1961. Although Andy Williams never released the song as a single, his LP Moon River and Other Great Movie Themes (1962), was certified gold in 1963 for selling one million units. The album reached number 3 on
800-611: The Billboard Top 200 , eventually selling more than two million copies by 1967. In 2002, a 74-year-old Andy Williams sang the song at the conclusion of the live NBC special telecast celebrating the network's 75th anniversary. In 2018, Andy Williams' version on Columbia Records was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. In 2022, Andy Williams' recording of the song was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in
850-646: The Billboard 200, Barbra Streisand in The Movie Album (2003), a Grammy-nominated gold album, and Frank Ocean , who released a cover on Valentine's Day 2018 that debuted in the Top 10 of the Billboard Hot R&;B chart. Diffuser.fm named these the "Top 5 Alt-Rock" versions of the song: Morrissey , Glasvegas , R.E.M. , The Killers and Josh Ritter . Jacob Collier 's a capella cover won
900-476: The Boston Pops Orchestra , Peggy Lee , and Matt Monro . The Anita Kerr Quartet won a Grammy award (1965) for their album We Dig Mancini , a cover of his songs. Lawrence Welk held Mancini in very high regard, and frequently featured Mancini's music on The Lawrence Welk Show (Mancini made at least two guest appearances on the show). Mancini briefly hosted his own musical variety TV show in
950-604: The Juilliard School of Music in New York City following a successful audition in which he performed a Beethoven sonata and improvisation on " Night and Day " by Cole Porter . Because he could only take orchestration and composition courses in his second year, Mancini studied only piano in his first year at Juilliard, in a condition Caps called "aimless and oppressed—a far cry from Adkins's enabling protective environment." After turning 18, Mancini enlisted in
1000-581: The National Recording Registry . Hundreds of versions of the song have been recorded and it has been featured in many media. Mercer recorded the song in 1974 for his album My Huckleberry Friend . In 2007, saxophonist Dave Koz recorded a version from his standards music album, At the Movies , sung by Barry Manilow . In 2013, Neil Finn and Paul Kelly performed the song on their Goin' Your Way Tour, during which their performance at
1050-633: The National Youth Jazz Orchestra in 2000, is the opening song in the film. The Telegraph listed, among prominent covers of the song, those by Frank Sinatra , Judy Garland , Sarah Vaughan , Louis Armstrong , Sarah Brightman and Chevy Chase (in the comedy film Fletch ). Other stars who have covered the song include Rod Stewart in Fly Me to the Moon... The Great American Songbook Volume V (2010), which charted at No. 4 on
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#17327823711591100-547: The River Thames . Shortly before his death in 1994, he made a one-off cameo appearance in the first season of the sitcom series Frasier , as a call-in patient to Dr. Frasier Crane's radio show. Mancini voiced the character Al, who speaks with a melancholy drawl and hates the sound of his own voice, in the episode "Guess Who's Coming to Breakfast?" Moments after Mancini's cameo ends, Frasier's radio broadcast plays "Moon River". Mancini also had an uncredited performance as
1150-693: The Sydney Opera House Concert Hall was recorded for the live album, Goin' Your Way , released the same year. The title of the album comes from a phrase in the song's chorus: "Wherever you're goin', I'm goin' your way". Lawrence Welk 's 1961 instrumental version was featured in Mad Men season 6 , episode 13, "In Care Of" (2013). A version of the song was featured in Asif Kapadia 's documentary film , Amy (2015), about Amy Winehouse . Winehouse's version, sung at age 16 with
1200-744: The Thorn Birds Suite in June 1983. He appeared in 1966, 1980 and 1984 in command performances for the British Royal Family . He also toured several times with Johnny Mathis and also with Andy Williams, who had both sung many of Mancini's songs; Mathis and Mancini collaborated on the 1986 album The Hollywood Musicals . In 1987 he conducted an impromptu charity concert in London in aid of Children In Need . The concert included Tchaikovsky 's 1812 Overture with firework accompaniment over
1250-747: The United States Army Air Forces in 1943. While in basic training in Atlantic City, New Jersey , he met musicians being recruited by Glenn Miller . Owing to a recommendation by Miller, Mancini was first assigned to the 28th Air Force Band before being reassigned overseas to the 1306th Engineers Brigade in France. In 1945, he helped liberate the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Austria. Newly discharged from
1300-487: The popular music of the time. The song's popularity is such that it has been used as a test sample in a study on people's memories of popular songs. Comments about the lyrics have noted that they are particularly reminiscent of Mercer's youth in the southern United States and his longing to expand his horizons. Robert Wright wrote in The Atlantic Monthly , "This is a love sung [ sic ] to wanderlust. Or
1350-557: The 1984–85 television season, four series featured original Mancini themes: Newhart , Hotel , Remington Steele , and Ripley's Believe It or Not . Mancini also composed the "Viewer Mail" theme for Late Night with David Letterman . Mancini composed the theme for NBC Nightly News used beginning in 1975, and a different theme by him, titled Salute to the President was used by NBC News for its election coverage (including primaries and conventions) from 1976 to 1992. Salute to
1400-403: The 2020 Grammy Award for Best Arrangement, Instrumental or A Cappella . Henry Mancini Henry Mancini ( / m æ n ˈ s iː n i / man- SEE -nee ; born Enrico Nicola Mancini ; April 16, 1924 – June 14, 1994) was an American composer, conductor, arranger, pianist and flutist. Often cited as one of the greatest composers in the history of film, he won four Academy Awards ,
1450-730: The Great Chefs of Europe? ), and others. Mancini's score for the Alfred Hitchcock film Frenzy (1972) in Bachian organ andante, for organ and an orchestra of strings was rejected and replaced by Ron Goodwin 's work. Mancini scored many TV movies, including The Moneychangers , The Thorn Birds and The Shadow Box . He wrote many television themes, including Mr. Lucky (starring John Vivyan and Ross Martin ), NBC Mystery Movie , Tic Tac Dough (1990 version), Once Is Not Enough , and What's Happening!! In
1500-677: The Henry Mancini Arts Academy was opened as a division of the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center. The center is located in Midland, Pennsylvania, minutes away from Mancini's hometown of Aliquippa. The Henry Mancini Arts Academy is an evening-and-weekend performing arts program for children from pre-K to grade 12, with some classes also available for adults. The program includes dance, voice, musical theater, and instrumental lessons. In 2017,
1550-563: The Municipality of Scanno dedicated a street to Mancini, called "Via Henry Mancini". The American Film Institute ranked Mancini's songs " Moon River " No. 4 and " Days of Wine and Roses " No. 39 on their 100 Years...100 Songs list, and his score for The Pink Panther No. 20 on their list of the greatest film scores . His scores for Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Charade (1963), Hatari! (1962), Touch of Evil (1958) and Wait Until Dark (1967) were also nominated for
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1600-748: The No. 1 hit "Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet ") and its accompanying album A Warm Shade of Ivory , Mancini began to function more as a piano soloist and easy-listening artist recording music primarily written by other people. In this period, for two of his best-selling albums he was joined by trumpet virtuoso and The Tonight Show bandleader Doc Severinsen . Among Mancini's orchestral scores are ( Lifeforce , The Great Mouse Detective , Sunflower , Tom and Jerry: The Movie , Molly Maguires , The Hawaiians ), and darker themes ( Experiment in Terror , The White Dawn , Wait Until Dark , The Night Visitor ). Mancini
1650-476: The Pink Panther , allowing the panther to conduct Bobby McFerrin in performing the film's theme tune. In 1969 at the 41st Academy Awards ceremony, Mancini played the harpsichord in a special number. Marni Nixon sang the rules for nomination in the category of Best Score of a Musical Motion Picture (Original or Adaptation), and together they sang the names of the films and musicians nominated. Mancini
1700-1036: The President was published only in a school-band arrangement, although Mancini performed it frequently with symphony orchestras on his concert tours. Songs with music by Mancini were staples of the easy listening radio format from the 1960s to the 1980s. To advertisers, Mancini's style symbolized the bright, confident, hospitable voice of bourgeois America. Some of the artists who have recorded Mancini songs include Andy Williams , Paul Anka , Pat Boone , Anita Bryant , Jack Jones , Frank Sinatra , Perry Como , Connie Francis , Eydie Gorme , Steve Lawrence , Trini Lopez , George Maharis , Johnny Mathis , Jerry Vale , Ray Conniff , Quincy Jones , The Lennon Sisters , The Lettermen , Herb Alpert , Eddie Cano , Frank Chacksfield , Warren Covington , Sarah Vaughan , Shelly Manne , James Moody , Percy Faith , Ferrante & Teicher , Horst Jankowski , Andre Kostelanetz , Peter Nero , Liberace , Mantovani , Tony Bennett , Julie London , Wayne Newton , Arthur Fiedler , Secret Agent and
1750-803: The Year . Mancini enjoyed a long collaboration in composing film scores for the film director Blake Edwards . Mancini also scored a No. 1 hit single during the rock era on the Hot 100 : his arrangement and recording of the " Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet " spent two weeks at the top, starting with the week ending June 28, 1969. Henry Mancini was born Enrico Nicola Mancini in Maple Heights, Ohio , and raised in West Aliquippa, Pennsylvania . Both his parents were Italian immigrants. Originally from Scanno, Abruzzo , his father Quintiliano "Quinto" Mancini
1800-467: The context of the film/theater. Actual film scores using players from Hollywood unions recording under major motion picture studio contracts were expensive to release on LP (ex: the soundtrack for Our Man Flint (not a Mancini score) cost $ 1 more than other LP albums of the day). Many soundtrack albums used to claim "Original Soundtrack" or words to that effect, but were not necessarily the actual soundtrack recordings. These albums were usually recorded with
1850-563: The list. Mancini was nominated for 72 Grammy Awards and won 20. He was nominated for 18 Academy Awards and won four. He also won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for two Emmy Awards. In 1961, Mancini won two Academy Awards, one for "Moon River" for Best Original Song and one for Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture for the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's . In 1962, he won Best Original Song again, this time for " Days of Wine and Roses ". He won Best Original Song Score and Its Adaptation or Best Adaptation Score again in 1982 for
1900-449: The military, Mancini entered the music industry. In 1946, he became a pianist and arranger for the newly re-formed Glenn Miller Orchestra , led by 'Everyman' Tex Beneke . After World War II, Mancini broadened his skills in composition, counterpoint, harmony and orchestration during studies, opening with the composers Ernst Krenek and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco . In 1952, Mancini joined Universal-International 's music department. During
1950-651: The movie Victor/Victoria . In 1989, Mancini received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement . In 1997, Mancini was posthumously awarded an honorary doctorate of music from Berklee College of Music . On April 13, 2004, the United States Postal Service honored Mancini with a thirty-seven cent commemorative stamp. Painted by artist Victor Stabin , the stamp shows Mancini conducting in front of
2000-461: The next six years, he contributed music to over 100 movies, most notably Creature from the Black Lagoon , The Creature Walks Among Us , It Came from Outer Space , Tarantula , This Island Earth , The Glenn Miller Story (for which he received his first Academy Award nomination), The Benny Goodman Story and Orson Welles ' Touch of Evil . His first hit as a pop songwriter
2050-419: The same point. An album version was recorded by Mancini and his orchestra and chorus (without Hepburn's vocal) on December 8, 1960. It was released as a single in 1961 and became a number 11 hit in December of that year. Due to unpublished charts in Billboard , Joel Whitburn's Top Adult (Contemporary) Songs variously reported the song as a number 3 or number 1 easy listening hit. Mancini's original version
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2100-502: The song, accompanying herself on the guitar while sitting on the fire escape outside their apartments. There was an eruption of behind-the-scenes consternation when a Paramount Pictures executive, Martin Rackin, suggested removing the song from the film after a tepid Los Angeles preview. Hepburn's reaction was described by Mancini and others in degrees varying from her saying, "Over my dead body!" to her using more colorful language to make
2150-522: The theme song for Andy Williams , who first recorded it in 1962 (and performed it at the Academy Awards ceremony that year). He sang the first eight bars of the song at the beginning of each episode of his eponymous television show and named his production company and venue in Branson, Missouri , after it; his autobiography is called "Moon River" and Me . Williams' version was never released as
2200-621: The young Mancini "preferred music arranging to any kind of musical performance, but taking apart a Chopin mazurka or Schumann sonata in order to play it helped him see...how the puzzle of form, meter, melody, harmony, and counterpoint had been solved by previous composers." After graduating from Aliquippa High School in 1942, Mancini first attended the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University ) in Pittsburgh. Later that year, Mancini transferred to
2250-600: Was a laborer at the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company and amateur musician who first came to the U.S. as a teenager around 1910. His mother Anna ( née Pece ) came to the U.S. from Forlì del Sannio , Molise , as an infant. At age eight, Mancini began learning the piccolo . Mancini said that hearing Rudolph G. Kopp's score in the 1935 Cecil B. DeMille film The Crusades inspired him to pursue film music composition despite his father's wishes for him to become
2300-532: Was a pioneer of the inclusion of jazz elements in the late romantic orchestral film and TV scoring prevalent at the time. Mancini's scores for Blake Edwards included Breakfast at Tiffany's (with the standard " Moon River ") and Days of Wine and Roses (with the title song, " Days of Wine and Roses "), as well as Experiment in Terror , The Pink Panther (and all of its sequels), The Great Race , The Party , 10 (including "It's Easy to Say") and Victor Victoria . Another director with whom Mancini had
2350-492: Was a single by Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians titled "I Won't Let You Out of My Heart". Mancini left Universal-International to work as an independent composer/arranger in 1958. Soon afterward, he scored the television series Peter Gunn for writer/producer Blake Edwards . This was the genesis of a relationship in which Edwards and Mancini collaborated on 30 films over 35 years. Along with Alex North , Elmer Bernstein , Leith Stevens and Johnny Mandel , Henry Mancini
2400-875: Was also a concert performer, conducting over fifty engagements per year, resulting in over 600 symphony performances during his lifetime. He conducted nearly all of the leading symphony orchestras of the world, including the London Symphony Orchestra , the Israel Philharmonic , the Boston Pops , the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra . One of his favorites was the Minnesota Orchestra , where he debuted
2450-545: Was also featured in the film Born on the Fourth of July (1989). In 1993, following Hepburn's death, her version was released on an album titled Music from the Films of Audrey Hepburn . In 2004, Hepburn's version finished at number 4 on AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs survey of top tunes in American cinema. "Moon River" was a hit single for Jerry Butler in late 1961. Released simultaneously with Mancini's, it reached number 11 on
2500-543: Was the music director of the 41st Academy Awards broadcast. Mancini died of pancreatic cancer in Los Angeles on June 14, 1994. He was working at the time on the Broadway stage version of Victor/Victoria , which he never saw on stage. Mancini was survived by his wife of 47 years, singer Virginia "Ginny" O'Connor, with whom he had three children. She died on October 25, 2021, at age 97. Henry Mancini created
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