Father of Film Music: The Incomparable Max Steiner

by Tony Thomas
Tony Thomas
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  • Incalculably influential composer-conductor soundtracked many of the 20th century’s biggest blockbusters
  • Child prodigy and multifaceted musical genius whose name became synonymous with lush Hollywood scores
  • He grew up amongst the cream of Vienna’s musical elites then emigrated to America for worldwide success
  • Prolific: he composed over 300 screen scores in 40 years and was Oscar-nominated 25 times, winning three

Max Steiner Hollywood composer

Of all the names associated with Hollywood music, perhaps no other has quite as much luster as that of Max Steiner. He was operative throughout the whole golden age of sound movies and he is the composer, than any other, attributed with the pioneering of original music in film scoring. He helped perfect the craft but he also had the gift of melody. Steiner was, in fact, a master of appealing tunes – relatively simple tunes and rhythms that deftly accentuated the characters and the sequences in the hundreds of pictures he scored. His productivity was astounding: over a thirty-five year period he worked on more than three hundred films. Some of those films will keep his name alive far into the future, particularly King Kong (1933) and Gone with the Wind (1939). And his almost three decades with Warner Bros., writing music for the films of Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney assure Steiner a very firm place in the history of Hollywood.

Max Steiner came from an almost fabled musical background. He was born in Vienna on May 10, 1888. the son of one of that city’s leading theatrical producers. His grandfather, after whom he was named, managed the famous Theatre-an-der-Wien and was responsible for persuading Johann Strauss, Jr. to turn to the field of operetta. The family’s involvement in the cultural life of Vienna was considerable. Max Steiner’s father built the Riesenrad, the giant Ferris wheel in the Prater, and his mother was a well-known restauranteur. Their only child had the luxury of growing up with almost every renowned composer and musician in Vienna as a friend of the family. It was of little surprise to anyone that the boy should reveal remarkable musical talents at an early age. After formal schooling he was enrolled in the Imperial Academy of Music and quickly mastered the piano, the organ and several other instruments. He studied composition and theory, first with Robert Fuchs and then with Herman Graedner, followed by instructions in conducting from Felix Weingartner.

At the age of fifteen Steiner received a gold medal from the academy for completing in one year a range of musical studies normally expected to be spread over a four-year period. After leaving the academy Steiner worked for his impresario father and on one occasion conducted a performance of the operetta The Belle of New York by Gustave Kerker, which drew the approval of the composer. Young Steiner also wrote an operetta of his own called The Beautiful Greek Girl and conducted it. His father had advised him that the show was not a very good one and declined to stage it in any of his own theatres. The son then took it to a competitor, Carl Tuschl of the Orpheum Theatre, who was pleased to produce it and even more pleased when it ran for a year.

In 1906, eighteen-year-old Max Steiner went to Russia with a touring operatic company as its conductor and generally enjoyed life – until he returned to Vienna, where his father’s complicated financial affairs resulted in bankruptcy. After that it was not so easy for young Steiner to find work and he decided to move to London, a move somewhat motivated by his feelings for an English showgirl he had met in Vienna. It took him a while to find employment in England but once launched as a conductor and arranger for stage musicals he found one job after another, which took him right through to the outbreak of war in 1914. Steiner then found himself with a real problem – being an enemy alien.

Friends in the London theatre persuaded Steiner that it was best for him to go to New York and helped raise money to send him there. But he needed more than money to leave England – he needed official sanction. Fortunately he was a friend of an influential gentleman, the Duke of Westminster, and through him received the necessary papers. He was allowed to take very little with him and arrived in New York in December of 1914 with thirty-two dollars in his pocket. As with his arrival in London it took a while to get established, and before being able to work at his own profession Steiner had to take a series of menial jobs. Eventually he was offered a job as a copyist with Harms Music Publishing, which quickly led to assignments as an orchestrator of stage musicals. By 1916 Steiner was established as a conductor on Broadway and over the course of the next thirteen years worked on so many musicals he claimed he could not remember them all.

Despite the vast amount of theatrical music with which Steiner dealt in all these years in New York, he was involved in very little composition. His talent seemed to lie in arranging, conducting and generally breathing life into other men’s music. The only show for which he wrote music, Peaches, lasted only two weeks. Up to the time he left New York in late 1929 to go to Hollywood, there was little about Steiner’s career to lead him, or anyone else, to imagine he would in the next decade become the most productive of all film composers, as well as the most influential.

Steiner was in his forty-second year when he arrived in Hollywood, and in no way aware of the great change he was about to experience in his life. His entry into the picture business came about through his composer friend Harry Tierney, for whom he orchestrated and conducted Rio Rita on Broadway. When RKO bought the property for the screen, Tierney insisted that Steiner be hired to provide the same services he had rendered for the stage version. Due to his reputation on Broadway, the studio offered Steiner a one-year contract, although with the almost immediate slump in movie musicals they wished they had not done so. However, it remained for Steiner to realize something that none of the film producers, at any studio, had imagined – the use of original composition as background scoring.

A listing of Steiner’s credits during his slightly more than five years with RKO would suggest that his every hour was spent in writing and conducting music. 1934, for example, shows thirty-seven films scored by Steiner. He was most certainly busy but most of these films required only main and end titles. However, that does not lessen his contribution because certain films in each of these years did indeed contain full scores, beginning with Symphony of Six Million in early 1932 and Bird of Paradise a few months later. King Kong the following year left no doubt in any producer’s mind about the value of original music in film making.

Even more impressive than Steiner’s vast output at RKO was his track record at Warners, beginning with The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936). In the incredible ten years following that picture, Steiner scored an average of eight major films each year, all of them requiring as much as an hour of music. It was a wonder he was able to live through 1939! That was the year in which he wrote the better part of three hours of music for Gone with the Wind, as well as providing music for eleven other films. He claimed it was only possible by taking pills to keep him awake. It was the price he paid for being a genius at his trade and for having the gift of invention, and the strength, to produce so prodigiously. It also came about as the result of his determination not to disappoint the producers who were relying on him, very few of whom had much idea of the skill and labor involved in creating music.

Despite the huge volume, Steiner never wished to stop composing for the screen. The decline toward the end of his life came about with the decline in the productivity of Hollywood in general; that plus the tastes of the newer producers, many of whom were propelled by the notion of using music more for its promotional value than its dramatic content. Steiner was also gradually defeated by his declining health, especially his failing eyesight, which were factors he never wanted to admit. He scored his last film in 1965 but would gladly have worked on others had they been offered. Steiner was seventy-seven that year and resentful about having to retire. He died on December 28, 1971 after a long illness. His death broke a link not only with the golden age of Hollywood but with the last glorious years of the Vienna of Emperor Franz Josef, on whose knee he had once sat as a boy.

It was my pleasure to know Max Steiner in the last ten years of his life. I had been in admirer of his music for many years prior to my first visit at his home, in January of 1959, when I went to see him to do what would happily be the first of several programmes for the radio network of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I was in the enviable position of being paid to do what I gladly would have done for nothing, that is, to explore his remarkable career and discover even more of his music than I had known before. I recall that first meeting as being a little formal – on my part rather than his. But I soon learned to relax and enjoy his warmth and his humor, and eventually his friendship.

In that first interview I asked a rather stuffy question, something to the effect that a composer with his enormous gift for melody should not have limited himself to films. He looked at me and nodded, and replied, “Well, it’s because I developed a very bad habit – I like to eat.” Later, when I asked him why he had been able to write such a brilliant score for Gone with the Wind he explained it by saying he had a crush on Vivien Leigh. I knew then that I was dealing with a man who was not about to take himself as seriously as I was taking myself. It was a good lesson and as the years went by I derived much by getting to know him, not the least of which was gaining many of his friends as my friends. It also brought me the friendship of the kind and generous lady who was his wife – Lee Steiner, who leads all of us in perpetuating his memory and his music. I consider myself very fortunate to be a part of all this. – Since You Went Away Citadel 2-LP (1977)

Max Steiner: Maestro of Movie Music (2019) | Father of Film Music/alt (2009) trailer

Note that apart from Bird of Paradise, which is in the public domain, there are many bootlegs of the films highlighted here but these are all their official releases. Similarly, there are numerous re-recordings of these scores but only the original soundtrack releases, conducted by the composer himself, are listed.

Tony Thomas

Tony Thomas (1927–1997) was a multi-hyphenate film historian who specialised in the golden age of Hollywood and its classic scores. Among his numerous accomplishments and additional writings, he authored around 35 books including...

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