Life and career[edit]

Smith was born in Calumet, Michigan on October 30, 1906. Upon graduating high school, he studied music at The College of Idaho from 1923 to 1925 before he was accepted into the Bush Conservatory of Music in Chicago, Illinois. His abilities in theory and composition earned him a scholarship to study music theory at Juilliard, however, it is unclear if he ever pursued this invitation.^[2]


Smith spent much of his life working at Disney as composer for many of its films' scores, animated and live-action alike, movie and television alike; from 1962 to 1963, he also composed music for Leave It to Beaver. In Fantasia, he is one of the studio employees in the orchestra. He also composed the scores for several of the True-Life Adventures episodes.^[3]


In 1950, Smith and Oliver Wallace composed the musical score of Disney's Cinderella.


Smith's main collaborator and partner was Hazel "Gil" George, who wrote the song title for The Light in the Forest with him^[4] and Lawrence Edward Watkin. Another one of Smith's collaborator was George Bruns who worked with him on films like Westward Ho the Wagons!. Smith also did the stock music for the Blondie series of the late 1940s and early 1950s. He won an Academy Award for Best Original Score with Leigh Harline and Ned Washington for Pinocchio, which was his first and only Oscar win. Smith received seven more Oscar nominations for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Saludos Amigos, Victory Through Air Power, The Three Caballeros, Song of the South, Cinderella and Perri.