Music by Max Steiner

Movie lovers and film music aficionados will forever be in Steven C. Smith's debt for telling the full story of Max Steiner's life and career. Gracefully written, this sympathetic portrait captures the prodigious composer's personality and documents his many milestone achievements, from King Kong to Gone With The Wind and Casablanca. I loved reading it. -Leonard Maltin, Film Critic and Historian Smith's life of Max Steiner moves like an express train, every page crammed with interest and scrupulous research, both historical and musical. This is genuine biography in which a fascinating subject has met his authorial match. Smith has granted Steiner the long overdue biography he richly deserves. -Nicholas Meyer, Author and Filmmaker The world owes Steven C. Smith an enormous debt of gratitude for this book. Here, finally, is the life of a man whose influence is felt every day in the unbroken line from Wagner, Mahler, and Strauss into the scores of everyone who attempts to compose orchestral music for the movies today. Years of ignorance have been washed away to reveal this great composer's story, and the history of Vienna in Hollywood-the very creation of the Hollywood Sound itself-will never be the same. Smith tells this extraordinary story to the world-and for the first time. -John Mauceri, Founding Director, Hollywood Bowl Orchestra, and author of For the Love of Music-A Conductor's Guide to the Art of Listening Smith brilliantly captures in rich and colorful detail the life and work of composer Max Steiner, whose contributions to the film industry were nothing short of extraordinary. Steiner's music set the template for all film composers who followed. Whenever I see King Kong in which my mother Fay Wray starred, it's the music that stirs in me feelings of terror and tenderness and which were integral to the film becoming a classic. Now finally, we have the story of the genius behind that music. -Victoria Riskin, author, Fay Wray and Robert Riskin: A Hollywood Memoir, and Former President, Writers Guild of America West Steven Smith has mined the vast source material and unearthed an array of evocative period photos, weaving these core elements into a definitive account of Hollywood's most prolific and widely celebrated film composer. This marvelous chronicle of Max Steiner's life, from his Viennese origins to his spectacular career within the movie industry, is at once deeply absorbing and painstakingly thorough. -Noah Isenberg, author of We'll Always Have Casablanca: The Life, Legend, and Afterlife of Hollywood's Most Beloved Movie After his definitive biography of Bernard Herrmann, Steven C. Smith returns with a spectacularly researched and beautifully written book that returns Max Steiner to his proper place in film history after a long period of neglect. It reminds us of the composer's many scoring innovations while also surprising us with the largely untold saga of his sometimes charmed, sometimes tragic life. -Jon Burlingame, author, The Music of James Bond In colorful prose and with finely detailed scenes...Smith adeptly details the process of making films and Steiner's involvement in scoring them...Filled with great detail of early Hollywood music, Smith's biography serves as the definitive study of the composer. -Publishers Weekly Smith has a keen eye for detail and a genuine appreciation for his subject, deftly combining details of Steiner's personal life along with compelling accounts of his work with a roster of Hollywood notables and discussions of his composing methods. VERDICT: This well-crafted biography will have film buffs applauding. -Carolyn M. Mulac, Library Journal