Dimitri Tiomkin, 1894-1979

Four-time Oscar-winning composer Dimitri Tiomkin

Today marks the birth anniversary of film composer Dimitri Tiomkin, who was born on this day in 1894, making him a young 125. Tiomkin's Hollywood career started in the mid-1930s, relatively quickly leading to an Oscar nomination for the score of Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. His first actual Oscar, however, wouldn't come until a dozen years later, for High Noon. Actually, that movie earned him two Oscars, one for the score and one for the title song:



Tiomkin's original scores are too many to mention; The High and the Mighty which won him another Oscar might be the best-known. But you could also mention Gunfight at the OK Corral, The Sundowners, or The Guns of Navarone. One that I like is his adaptation of Debussy's music for Portrait of Jennie.

I'm not certain if Tiomkin wrote any "traditional" (ie. non movie-related) classical music the way other film composers did. Wikipedia doesn't mention any and Youtube doesn't yield any hits.