BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS
Full Name: John Mervyn Addison
Description: Composer of songs, UK
Known For: The score for – Reach for the Sky (1956)
Instruments: Piano
Music Styles: Classical, Popular
Location: United Kingdom
Date Born: 16th March 1920
Location Born: Chobham, United Kingdom
Date Died: 7th December 1998
Location Died: Bennington, United States of America
CONTACT DETAILS
Web site: John Addison at AllMusic
Other Links: See below:
YOUTUBE VIDEO
BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILE
John Addison
John Mervyn Addison (16 March 1920 – 7 December 1998) was a British composer best known for his film scores.
Addison was born in Chobham, Surrey to a father who was a colonel in the Royal Field Artillery, and this influenced the decision to send him to school at Wellington College, Berkshire. His grandfather was Lieut Col George Addison, who played for the Royal Engineers in the 1872 and 1874 FA Cup Finals.
At the age of sixteen he entered the Royal College of Music, where he studied composition with Gordon Jacob, oboe with Léon Goossens, and clarinet with Frederick Thurston. This education ended in 1939 with service in World War II. Addison served with the British XXX Corps in the 23rd Hussars. He was a tank officer in the Battle of Normandy and wounded at Caen, later participating in Operation Market Garden. At the end of the war, he returned to London to teach composition at the Royal College of Music.
Addison is best known for his film scores. He won an Academy Award and a Grammy Award in the Best Original Score from a Motion Picture or Television Show category for the music to the 1963 film, Tom Jones. He also won a BAFTA Award for A Bridge Too Far (1977). His other film scores included A Taste of Honey (1961), Smashing Time (1967), The Honey Pot (1967), Sleuth (1972), Swashbuckler (1976) and the television series Centennial (1978).
He composed the theme music for the television series Murder, She Wrote, for which he won an Emmy. Addison will also be remembered as the composer Alfred Hitchcock turned to when the director ended his long relationship with Bernard Herrmann over the score to his 1966 film Torn Curtain.
He had a personal connection to Reach for the Sky (1956) which he scored, since Douglas Bader (the subject of the movie) was his brother-in-law.
For the theatre, Addison wrote the music for John Osborne’s plays The Entertainer (1957) and Luther. (1961) He collaborated with John Cranko on a revue, “Cranks” in 1956.
Although he wrote numerous classical compositions, Addison explained that “If you find you’re good at something, as I was as a film composer, it’s stupid to do anything else.” His classical works included a trumpet concerto, described by The Times as “buoyant” and “Gershwinesque”; a trio for oboe, clarinet and bassoon; Carte Blanche, a ballet for Sadler’s Wells from which an orchestral suite of “sophisticated high spirits” was performed at the Proms; a septet for wind and harp,a piano concerto, a concertante for oboe, clarinet, horn and orchestra; and a partita for strings, which was warmly praised.
Marlene Dietrich recorded If He Swing By the String and Such Trying Times from the music in Tom Jones.
Addison’s collection of correspondence, scores, and studio recordings were donated to the Film Music Archives at Brigham Young University in 1994. He was survived by his wife Pamela; two sons Jonathan and Daniel; daughter Lucinda; stepson Rex Birchenough, and stepdaughter Sandra Stapleton. His daughter Jane pre-deceased him.
Film Scores
1977 A Bridge Too Far
1976 Swashbuckler (film)
1976 The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (film)
1975 Ride a Wild Pony
1975 Rape Victims[15]
1972 Sleuth
1968 Twisted Nerve
1968 The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968 film)
1967 Smashing Time
1967 The Honey Pot
1966 Torn Curtain
1965 The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders
1963 Tom Jones (1963 film)
1961 A Taste of Honey
1960 A French Mistress
1960 The Entertainer
1956 It’s Great to Be Young
1955 The Cockleshell Heroes
1953 The Man Between
1951 Pool of London
1947 Brighton Rock
1981 The Pilot
Music Composed for TV
1990 The Phantom of the Opera (miniseries)
1988 A Shadow on the Sun
1987 Strange Voices
1986-1987 Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color (2 episodes)
1986 Amazing Stories (2 episodes)
1986 Something in Common
1986 Dead Man’s Folly
1985 Thirteen at Dinner
1984 Ellis Island
1984 Murder, She Wrote (1 episode)
1982 I Was a Mail Order Bride
1982 The Devlin Connection
1982 Charles & Diana: A Royal Love Story
1982 Eleanor, First Lady of the World
1981 Mistress of Paradise
1981 Nero Wolfe (14 episodes)
1979 The French Atlantic Affair
1979 Love’s Savage Fury
1979 The Power Within
1979 Like Normal People
1978 Centennial (miniseries) (12 episodes)
1978 Pearl (miniseries)
1978 The Eddie Capra Mysteries—Wikipedia (Italian website) (1 episode)
1978 The Bastard
1978 Black Beauty (1978 film)
1975 Grady (2 episodes)
1975 A Journey to London
1974 Bellamira
1974 Play for Today (1 episode)
1970 ITV Sunday Night Theatre (1 episode) (Hamlet)
1964 Detective (1 episode)
LINKS:
- John Addison at the Internet Movie Database
- John Addison biography and credits at BFI Screenonline
- John Addison at AllMusic