Edward H. Plumb
Edward Holcomb Plumb (June 6, 1907, Streator, Illinois – April 18, 1958, Los Angeles, California) was a film composer and orchestrator best known for his work at Walt Disney Studios. He served as musical director of Fantasia and orchestrated and co-composed the score for Bambi, and orchestrated and expanded the film's main composer Frank Churchill's menacing but simple three-note theme.
Life and career[edit]
Plumb was born in Streator, Illinois. His grandfather, Colonel Ralph Plumb founded the city of Streator in 1866. In the 1930s, Plumb moved to California and began work as a composer and orchestrator in the film industry. In addition to his work for Disney, Plumb frequently worked on titles for other studios, including Republic, Paramount and 20th Century Fox. In 1953, he wrote the music for MGM's Tom and Jerry short called The Missing Mouse because Scott Bradley was on vacation.[1] Back at Disney, Plumb orchestrated the music for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937 film), the Whale Chase sequence in Pinocchio,[2] Dumbo, Make Mine Music, Song of the South, Beanero in Fun and Fancy Free,[3] So Dear to My Heart, some subsidiary cues for Cinderella, Peter Pan, and Lady and the Tramp. He also orchestrated a number of television programs for Walt Disney Presents, a number of Davy Crockett films and on Westward Ho, the Wagons!, starring Fess Parker. His final film project was Johnny Tremain for Disney in 1957.
Plumb died from long-term effects of alcohol consumption on April 18, 1958. He was 50.[4][5]
He received Oscar nominations for Bambi, Victory Through Air Power, Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros.[6]
In the Tom and Jerry cartoon "The Missing Mouse" he is credited as "Edward Plumb" without the H. initial.
1940 - additional music - uncredited
Pinocchio
1940 - musical director
Fantasia
1941 - orchestration - uncredited
The Reluctant Dragon
1941 - orchestrator
Dumbo
1942 - orchestrator/co-composer
Bambi
1942 - score
Saludos Amigos
1943 - score
Victory Through Air Power
1944 - associate music director
The Three Caballeros
1945 - score
Donald's Crime
1946 - associate music director
Make Mine Music
1946 - orchestration
Song of the South
1947 - orchestration - uncredited
Fun and Fancy Free
1949 - orchestration as Ed Plumb
So Dear to My Heart
1950 - orchestration - uncredited
Cinderella
1950 - orchestration - uncredited
In Beaver Valley
1951 - orchestration - uncredited
Nature's Half Acre
1952 - orchestration - uncredited
The Olympic Elk
1952 - orchestration
Water Birds
1953 - orchestration
Peter Pan
1953 - orchestration - uncredited
Bear Country
1953 - orchestration - uncredited
The Alaskan Eskimo
1953 - score
The New Neighbor
1953 - orchestration
The Living Desert
1953 - score
How to Sleep
1954 - score
Donald's Diary
1954 - orchestration
The Vanishing Prairie
1955 - orchestration
Davy Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier
1955 - orchestration
Lady and the Tramp
1956 - orchestration
Davy Crockett and the River Pirates
1956 - orchestration
Secrets of Life
1956 - orchestration
Westward Ho the Wagons!
1957 - orchestration
Johnny Tremain
1942 - orchestrator
Iceland
1942 - orchestrator
Careful, Soft Shoulders
1942 - orchestrator
Girl Trouble
1942 - orchestrator
You Were Never Lovelier
1944
Ever Since Venus
1945 - score
The Phantom Speaks
1945 - score
The Woman Who Came Back
1945 - orchestrator
Doll Face
1946 - additional music - uncredited
Murder in the Music Hall
1946
Valley of the Zombies
1946
Centennial Summer
1946
Monsieur Beaucaire
1946
Wake Up and Dream
1947 - orchestrator
Calcutta
1947 - composer "Puppetoon" sequence
Variety Girl
1948 - orchestrator
The Sainted Sisters
1949 - orchestrator
The Accused
1949 - orchestrator
The Great Lover
1950 - orchestrator
The Happy Years
1950 - orchestrator
Fancy Pants
1950
Father Is a Bachelor
1951
Quebec
1951 - orchestrator
The Painted Hills
1951 - orchestrator
That's My Boy
1951 - orchestrator
Angels in the Outfield
1953
The Missing Mouse
Bohn, James Matthew (2018). Music in Disney's Animated Features: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to The Jungle Book. Jackson, Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi. 978-1-4968-1218-6. OCLC 1102733615.
ISBN
Care, Ross B. (January 1983) "Threads of Care: The Evolution of a Major Film Score - Walt Disney's Bambi," The Quarterly Journal of the Library of Congress v. 40, n. 2, p. 100
Tietyan, Dave (1990) The Musical World of Walt Disney. New York: Harry N. Abrams. 9780810936041
ISBN
Notes
The library of Congress
Film Composers in America 1911 - 1970 by Clifford McCarthy
Bibliography