Paul Desmond (November 25, 1924 - May 30, 1977), born Paul Emil Breitenfeld, was a jazz alto saxophonist and composer born in San Francisco, best known for the work he did in the Dave Brubeck Quartet and for penning that group's greatest hit, "Take Five." Known to have possessed an idiosyncratic wit, he was one of the most popular musicians to come out of the West Coast's "cool jazz" scene.
In addition to his work with Brubeck he led several of his own groups and did significant collaborations with artists such as Gerry Mulligan, Jim Hall and Chet Baker. After years of chain smoking and general poor health, Desmond succumbed to lung cancer in 1977 following one last tour with Brubeck.
Maurice Jarre (b. September 24, 1924, Lyons, France - March 29, 2009) was a French composer and conductor. Although he composed several concert works, he is best known for his film scores for motion pictures, particularly those of David Lean: Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Doctor Zhivago (1965), and A Passage to India (1984). All three of these scores won Academy Awards.
Jarre started studying music at a late age, unlike many of his fellow musicians. He first enrolled in the engineering school at the Sorbonne. However, he decided to pursue his education in music instead. He left the Sorbonne, against his father's will, and enrolled at Conservatoire de Paris to study composition (with Arthur Honegger), harmony and chose percussion as his major instrument. He became the Théâtre National Populaire director, and recorded his first movie score in France in 1951.
In 1961 Jarre musical life experienced a major turn when the movie producer Sam Spiegel asked him to write the score of Lawrence of Arabia for which he won his first Academy Award.He followed with The Train (1964) and another great success in Doctor Zhivago that earned him his second Academy Award.
He was again nominated for an Academy award for scoring The Message (aka Mohammad, Messenger of God) in 1976 for the director and producer Moustapha Akkad.
In the 80's, Jarre turned his hand to science fiction, with scores for Enemy Mine (1985) and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985). The latter is written for full orchestra, augmented by a chorus, four grand pianos, a pipe organ, digeridoo, fujara, a battery of exotic percussion and three ondes Martenot (which feature in several of Jarre's other scores, including Lawrence of Arabia, Jesus of Nazareth, and The Bride).
Now officially retired, Jarre scored his last film in 2001, a TV movie about the Holocaust entitled Uprising.
Jarre wrote mainly for orchestras, but began to favor to synthesized music in the 1980's, mostly for practical rather than aesthetic motivations, many critics feel. Jarre denies this and has pointed out that his electronic score for Witness was actually more laborious, time-consuming and expensive to produce than an orchestral score. A number of his scores from that era also feature electronic/acoustic blends, such as Gorillas in the Mist, Dead Poets Society, and Jacob's Ladder.
His most famous works to date include the broad unique Lawrence of Arabia and the Russian-flavored Doctor Zhivago.
Also wrote the music to the 1966 film Grand Prix, starring James Garner and Yves Montand and directed by John Frankenheimer.
Jarre has been married four times.
He is the father of composer Jean Michel and screenwriter Kevin.
Henry Mancini (April 16, 1924 - June 14, 1994) was an Academy Award winning American composer, conductor, and arranger. He is remembered particularly for being a composer of film and television scores. Mancini also won a record number of Grammy awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995. Among his best-known works are the theme to The Pink Panther and Moon River.
*** Marlon Brando, Jr. (April 3, 1924 - July 1, 2004) was an American actor who performed for over half a century.
He was perhaps best known for his roles as Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and his Academy Award-winning performance as Terry Malloy in On the Waterfront (1954), both directed by Elia Kazan, and his Academy Award-winning performance as Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather (1972). In middle age he also played Colonel Walter Kurtz in Apocalypse Now (1979), also directed by Coppola, and delivered an Academy Award-nominated performance as Paul in Last Tango in Paris (1972).
Brando had a significant impact on film acting. He was the foremost example of the "method" acting style, and became notorious for his "mumbling" diction,[1] but his mercurial performances were highly regarded and he is now considered one of the greatest American film actors of the twentieth century. Director Martin Scorsese said of him, "He is the marker. There's 'before Brando' and 'after Brando'." Actor Jack Nicholson once said, "When Marlon dies, everybody moves up one."
Brando was also an activist, supporting many issues, notably the American Civil Rights and various American Indian Movements.
