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Alex North (1910–1991) received 15 Academy Award nominations between 1951 and 1984, 14 for Original Score and 1 for Song. He finally took home a statuette at the 1985 Academy Awards, when he was presented with an Honorary Award “in recognition of his brilliant artistry in the creation of memorable music for a host of distinguished motion pictures.” North’s ‘brilliant artistry’ included his work for “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951), which was the first major score to rely heavily on jazz influences, “Death of a Salesman” (1951) and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” (1966). His ability to handle epic subject...

Unchained Melodies: A Centennial Tribute to Alex North Sunday, October 24th 2-4 PM Pacific / 3-5 PM Mountain / 4-6 PM Central / 5-7 PM Eastern Film composer Alex North, who would have turned 100 this year, will be celebrated in a two-hour radio special – “Unchained Melodies: A Centennial Tribute to Alex North” – airing at 2 PM Sunday, October 24, on Classical KUSC. North, composer of such landmark movie scores as A Streetcar Named Desire, Spartacus and Cleopatra, was a 15-time Oscar nominee and the first composer ever to receive an honorary Academy Award (in 1986) for his body of...

Some time ago, in my eternal quest to set the record straight, I suggested that the true hero of the motion picture industry wasn’t Thomas Edison or D.W. Griffith, not Chaplin or Keaton, not Jack Warner or Louis B. Mayer, but the anonymous fellow who first came up with the notion of putting salt on popcorn, thus turning packing material into a concession stand bonanza that costs more per-pound than lox and caviar put together. But there are others who, more often than not, get overlooked while far too much praise is lavished on actors and directors. I refer to...