George Antheil
George Johann Carl Antheil (/ˈæntaɪl/; July 8, 1900 – February 12, 1959) was an American avant-garde composer, pianist, author, and inventor whose modernist musical compositions explored the sounds – musical, industrial, and mechanical – of the early 20th century. Spending much of the 1920s in Europe, Antheil returned to the United States in the 1930s, and thereafter composed music for films, and eventually, television. As a result of this work, his style became more tonal. A man of diverse interests and talents, Antheil was constantly reinventing himself. He wrote magazine articles, an autobiography, a mystery novel, and newspaper and music columns.
George Antheil
In 1941, Antheil and the actress Hedy Lamarr developed a radio guidance system for Allied torpedoes that used a code (stored on a punched paper tape) to synchronize frequency changes, referred to as frequency hopping, between the transmitter and receiver. It is one of the spread spectrum techniques that became widely used in modern telecommunications. This work led to their induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2014.[1]
Hollywood[edit]
In 1936, Antheil travelled to Hollywood, where he became a sought-after film composer, writing more than 30 scores for such directors as Cecil B. DeMille and Nicholas Ray,[2][11] including The Scoundrel (1935) and The Plainsman (1936).[30] The Antheils' only child, a son named Peter, was born in 1937.[47] Antheil found the industry hostile to modern music, complaining that it was a "closed proposition", and describing most background scores as "unmitigated tripe". He became increasingly dependent on more independent producers such as Ben Hecht to give him work, such as Angels Over Broadway (1940) and Specter of the Rose (1946).[48] He also wrote the score for the independent film Dementia (1955) and In a Lonely Place (1950) starring Humphrey Bogart.[49] Antheil was confident in the ability of his music to save a weak film. "If I say so myself, I've saved a couple of sure flops".[49]
Besides writing scores for movies, he continued to compose other music, including for ballet[50] and six symphonies; his later works were in a more romantic style and influenced by Prokofiev and Shostakovich, as well as American music including jazz.[2][30][49][51] Works such as Serenade No. 1, Piano Sonata No. 4, Songs of Experience and Eight Fragments from Shelley, written in 1948 showed a self-described desire "to disassociate myself from the passé modern schools of the last half-century, and to create a music for myself and those around me which has no fear of developed melody, real development itself, tonality, or other understandable forms."[47] His 1953 opera Volpone was premiered in New York in 1953 to mixed reviews,[49] while a visit to Spain in the 1950s influenced some of his last works, including the film score for The Pride and the Passion (1957).[47] He also accepted a commission from the CBS Television network to compose a theme for their newsreel and documentary film series The Twentieth Century (1957–1966), narrated by Walter Cronkite.
Other interests[edit]
Apart from music, Antheil had many other pursuits. In 1930, as Stacey Bishop, he wrote a murder mystery called Death in the Dark with a character based on Ezra Pound.[2][30] He was the film music reporter and critic for the magazine Modern Music from 1936 to 1940, writing columns considered lively and thoughtful, noting the comings and goings of musicians and composers during an era when the industry was flirting with more "modern" scores for films. He was disappointed, however, and wrote that "Hollywood, after a grand splurge with new composers and new ideas, has settled back into its old grind of producing easy and sure-fire scores."[48]
Before World War II, he participated in the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League, putting on exhibits of artworks banned in Nazi Germany such as those by Käthe Kollwitz.[45] He also published a book of war predictions, entitled The Shape of the War to Come.[50]
In 1945, he published a memoir called Bad Boy of Music, which became a bestseller.[47]
Antheil wrote a nationally syndicated newspaper relationship advice column, as well as regular columns in magazines such as Esquire and Coronet. He considered himself an expert on female endocrinology, and wrote a series of articles about how to determine the availability of women based on glandular effects on their appearance, with titles such as "The Glandbook for the Questing Male".[2][52] Another book of "glandular criminology" was titled Every Man His Own Detective.
Later life[edit]
Antheil died of a heart attack in the New York City borough of Manhattan.[58] His legacy included three accomplished students, Henry Brant, Benjamin Lees, and Ruth White. He is buried in Riverview Cemetery, in Trenton, New Jersey.
In literature[edit]
"Antheil's my man." Mrs. McKisco turned challengingly to Rosemary, "Antheil and Joyce. I don't suppose you ever hear much about those sort of people in Hollywood, but my husband wrote the first criticism of Ulysses that ever appeared in America." (F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Night)[59]