Meredith Willson Hollywood Did Wilson write music for any movies? His work in films included composing the score for Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940) (Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score),
What other movies did he compose for?
What other movies did  Meredith Willson compose for other than Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator?
His work in films included composing the score for Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940) (Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score), and arranging music for the score of William Wyler's The Little Foxes (1941) (Academy Award nomination for Best Music Score of a Dramatic Picture).  During World War II, he worked for the United States' Armed Forces Radio Service. His work with the AFRS teamed him with George Burns, Gracie Allen and Bill Goodwin. He would work with all three as the bandleader, and a regular character, on the Burns and Allen radio program. He played a shy man, always trying to get advice on women. His character was ditsy as well, basically a male version of Gracie Allen's character.  In 1942, Willson had his own program on NBC. Meredith Willson's Music was a summer replacement for Fibber McGee and Molly. Sparkle Time, which ran on CBS in 1946-47, was Willson's first full-season radio program.  Returning to network radio after WWII, he created the Talking People, a choral group that spoke in unison while delivering radio commercials. He also became the musical director for The Big Show, a prestigious comedy-variety program hosted by actress Tallulah Bankhead and featuring some of the world's most respected entertainers. Willson himself became part of one of the show's very few running gags, beginning replies to Bankhead's comments or questions with "well, sir, Miss Bankhead . . ." Willson wrote the song "May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You" for the show. Bankhead spoke the lyrics over the music at the end of each show. He also worked on Jack Benny's radio program, and hosted his own program in 1949. For a few years in the early 1950s, Willson was a regular panelist on the Goodson-Todman game show The Name's the Same.  In 1950 Willson served as Musical Director for The California Story, the Golden State's centennial production at the Hollywood Bowl. Through working on this production, Willson met writer Franklin Lacey who proved instrumental in developing the story line for a musical Willson had been working on, soon to be known as The Music Man. The California Story spectacular was followed by two more state centennial collaborations with stage director Vladimir Rosing: The Oregon Story in 1959 and The Kansas Story in 1961. CANNOTANSWER
and arranging music for the score of William Wyler's The Little Foxes (1941) (Academy Award nomination for Best Music Score of a Dramatic Picture).
Robert Reiniger Meredith Willson (May 18, 1902 – June 15, 1984) was an American flutist, composer, conductor, musical arranger, bandleader, playwright, and author. He is best known for writing the book, music, and lyrics for the 1957 hit Broadway musical The Music Man and "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" (1951). Willson wrote two other Broadway musicals and composed symphonies and popular songs. He was twice nominated for Academy Awards for film scores.

Early life
Willson was born in Mason City, Iowa, to Rosalie Reiniger Willson and John David Willson. He had a brother two years his senior, John Cedrick, and a sister 12 years his senior, children's author Dixie Willson. Willson attended Frank Damrosch's Institute of Musical Art (which later became the Juilliard School) in New York City. He married his high-school sweetheart, Elizabeth "Peggy" Wilson, on August 29, 1920; they were married for 26 years.

The young Willson became a flute and piccolo virtuoso, and was accomplished enough to become a member of John Philip Sousa's band (1921–1924) and later the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Arturo Toscanini (1924–1929). He then moved to San Francisco, California, as the concert director for radio station KFRC, and then as a musical director for the NBC radio network in Hollywood. His on-air radio debut came on KFRC in 1928 on Blue Monday Jamboree.

Hollywood
Willson's work in films included the score for Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940) (Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score), and arranging music for the score of William Wyler's The Little Foxes (1941) (Academy Award nomination for Best Music Score of a Dramatic Picture).

During World War II, Willson worked for the United States' Armed Forces Radio Service. His work with the AFRS teamed him with George Burns, Gracie Allen, and Bill Goodwin. He worked with all three as the bandleader, and a regular character, on the Burns and Allen radio program. He played a shy man always trying to get advice on women. His character was ditzy as well, basically a male version of Allen's.

In 1942, Willson had his own program on NBC. Meredith Willson's Music was a summer replacement for Fibber McGee and Molly. Sparkle Time, which ran on CBS in 1946–47, was Willson's first full-season radio program.

Returning to network radio after WWII, Willson created the Talking People, a choral group that spoke in unison while delivering radio commercials. In 1950 he became the musical director for The Big Show, a 90-minute comedy-variety program hosted by actress Tallulah Bankhead and featuring some of the world's best-known entertainers. Willson became part of one of the show's very few running gags, beginning replies to Bankhead's comments or questions with "well, sir, Miss Bankhead". He wrote the song "May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You" for the show. Bankhead spoke the lyrics over the music at the end of each show. He also worked on Jack Benny's radio program, and hosted his own program in 1949. For a few years in the early 1950s, Willson was a regular panelist on the Goodson-Todman game show The Name's the Same; he recalled later that he did the show for the steady Goodson-Todman salary, which he was saving toward his Broadway musical project.

In 1950, Willson served as musical director for The California Story, California's centennial production at the Hollywood Bowl. Working on this production, Willson met writer Franklin Lacey, who proved instrumental in developing the storyline for a musical Willson had been working on, soon to become The Music Man. The California Story was followed by two more state centennial collaborations with stage director Vladimir Rosing: The Oregon Story in 1959 and The Kansas Story in 1961.

Broadway
Willson's most famous work, The Music Man, premiered on Broadway in 1957, and was adapted twice for film (in 1962 and 2003). He called it "an Iowan's attempt to pay tribute to his home state". It took Willson eight years and 30 revisions to complete the musical, for which he wrote more than 40 songs. The show was a resounding success, running on Broadway for 1,375 performances over three and a half years. The cast recording won the first Grammy Award for Best Original Cast Album (Broadway or TV). In 1959, Willson and his second wife Ralina "Rini" Zarova recorded an album, ... and Then I Wrote The Music Man, in which they review the history of, and sing songs from, the show. In 2010, Brian d'Arcy James and Kelli O'Hara played Willson and Rini in an off-Broadway entertainment based on this album.

Willson's second musical, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, ran on Broadway for 532 performances from 1960 to 1962 and was made into a 1964 motion picture starring Debbie Reynolds. His third Broadway musical was an adaptation of the film Miracle on 34th Street, called Here's Love. Some theater buffs recall it as a quick failure, but it actually enjoyed an eight-month run on Broadway in 1963-64 (334 performances). His fourth, last, and least successful musical was 1491, which told the story of Columbus's attempts to finance his famous voyage. It was produced by the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera in 1969, but not on Broadway.

Other works

Classical music
Willson's Symphony No. 1 in F minor: A Symphony of San Francisco and his Symphony No. 2 in E minor: Missions of California were recorded in 1999 by William T. Stromberg conducting the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra. Other symphonic works include the O.O. McIntyre Suite, Symphonic Variations on an American Theme and Anthem, the symphonic poem Jervis Bay, and Ask Not, which incorporates quotations from John F. Kennedy's inaugural address. In tribute to the Idyllwild School of Music and the Arts (ISOMATA), Willson composed In Idyllwild for orchestra, choir, vocal solo and Alphorn. Willson's chamber music includes A Suite for Flute.

Television specials
In 1964, Willson produced three original summer variety specials for CBS under the title Texaco Star Parade. The first premiered on June 5, 1964, and starred Willson and his wife Rini. It featured guest stars Caterina Valente and Sergio Franchi, and a production number with Willson leading four military bands composed of 500 California high school band members. The second special starred Debbie Reynolds singing selections she had introduced in Willson's production The Unsinkable Molly Brown. On July 28, Willson and Rini hosted the third special, which featured a Willson production number with 1,000 Marine Corps volunteers from Camp Pendelton. Guest stars were Vikki Carr, Jack Jones, Frederick Hemke, and Joe and Eddie.

Popular songs
Willson wrote a number of well-known songs, such as "You and I", a No. 1 hit for Glenn Miller in 1941 on the Billboard charts. It was also recorded by Bing Crosby, and by Tommy Dorsey with Frank Sinatra on vocals.

Three songs from The Music Man have become American standards: "Seventy-Six Trombones", "Gary, Indiana", and "Till There Was You", originally titled "Till I Met You" (1950).

Other popular songs by Willson include "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" (published as "It's Beginning to Look Like Christmas"), "May the Good Lord Bless and Keep You", and "I See the Moon". He wrote the University of Iowa's fight song, "Iowa Fight Song", as well as Iowa State University's "For I for S Forever". He also wrote the fight song for his hometown high school "Mason City, Go!" He honored The Salvation Army with a musical tribute, "Banners and Bonnets".

An oddity in Willson's body of work is "Chicken Fat", written in 1962. In school gymnasiums across the nation, this was the theme song for President John F. Kennedy's youth fitness program. It was time to get the country's youth into shape, and Willson's song had youngsters moving through basic exercises at a frenetic pace: push-ups, sit-ups, jumping jacks, torso twists, running in place, pogo springs, and plenty of marching. With an energetic lead vocal by Robert Preston, orchestral marching band, and full chorus, it was recorded during sessions for the Music Man film. Two versions of the song exist: a three-minute, radio-friendly length, and a longer, six-minute version for use in the gymnasium. In 2014, a re-recording of "Chicken Fat" was used in a television commercial for the iPhone 5S.

In 1974, Willson offered another marching song, "Whip Inflation Now", to the Ford Administration, but it was not used.

Autobiography
Willson wrote three memoirs: And There I Stood With My Piccolo (1948), Eggs I Have Laid (1955), and But He Doesn't Know the Territory (1959).

Personal life

Willson was married three times. He was divorced by his first wife, Elizabeth, as reported in a news dispatch of March 5, 1947. They apparently had no contact after the divorce, and in his three memoirs Elizabeth is never mentioned, although he surprised her by sending her roses on August 20, 1970, which would have been their 50th wedding anniversary.

Wilson married Ralina "Rini" Zarova, a Russian opera singer, on March 13, 1948. She died on December 6, 1966. Willson married Rosemary Sullivan in February 1968. For years he lived in the Mandeville Canyon section of Brentwood, California; he was fondly remembered by friends and neighbors as a warm and gregarious host who loved nothing more than to play the piano and sing at parties. He often gave guests autographed copies of his album Meredith Willson Sings Songs from The Music Man. In 1982, he and Rosemary appeared in the audience of The Lawrence Welk Show.

Willson returned several times to his hometown for the North Iowa Band Festival, an annual event celebrating music with a special emphasis on marching bands. Mason City was the site of the 1962 premiere of the motion picture The Music Man, hosted by Iowa Governor Norman Erbe, which was timed to coincide with the festival. Like his character Harold Hill, Willson led the "Big Parade" through the town, and the event included special appearances by the film's stars Shirley Jones and Robert Preston. The Master of Ceremonies, Mason City Globe-Gazette editor W. Earl Hall, was a statewide radio personality and friend of many decades.

Willson was a member of the National Honorary Band Fraternity, Kappa Kappa Psi.

Willson died of heart failure in 1984 at the age of 82. His funeral in Mason City included mourners dressed in Music Man costumes and a barbershop quartet that sang "Lida Rose". Willson is buried at the Elmwood-St. Joseph Municipal Cemetery in Mason City.

Legacy

On June 23, 1987, Willson posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Ronald Reagan.
In 1999, the United States Postal Service issued a postage stamp featuring Willson.
Willson's boyhood home in Mason City, Iowa, is part of "The Music Man Square", which opened in 2002. His widow, Rosemary, was a donor to the square.
 His alma mater, the Juilliard School, dedicated its first and only residence hall to Willson in 2005.
"Till There Was You" from The Music Man was a favorite of the Beatles, and their recording of it was issued on their second UK and US albums With the Beatles and Meet the Beatles!. They performed the song during their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964.
 Willson's papers can be found at the Great American Songbook Foundation.

Bibliography
Willson, Meredith. And There I Stood with My Piccolo. Minneapolis. University of Minnesota Press, 1948, 2009.
Willson, Meredith. Eggs I Have Laid, Holt, 1955.
Willson, Meredith. But He Doesn't Know the Territory. Minneapolis. University of Minnesota Press 1959, 2009. Chronicles the making of The Music Man.

Notes

References
 Skipper, John C. (2000),  Meredith Willson: The Unsinkable Music Man Savas Pub. Co, 
 Oates, Bill (2005), Meredith Willson-America's Music Man, Author House,

External links

Official Website

NAXOS listing
MTI Shows biography
Song Writers Hall of Fame listing
Des Moines Register bio
Remarks at the Presentation Ceremony for the Presidential Medal of Freedom – June 23, 1987
Univ. of Iowa Special Collections, Papers of W. Earl Hall (dating from 1917–1969)
 Appearance of Willson as guest on Make the Connection show, Sept. 1, 1955?

1902 births
1984 deaths
20th-century American composers
20th-century American male musicians
20th-century classical composers
American classical composers
American classical flautists
American film score composers
American male classical composers
American memoirists
American musical theatre composers
American musical theatre lyricists
Broadway composers and lyricists
Capitol Records artists
Distinguished Service to Music Medal recipients
Grammy Award winners
Juilliard School alumni
American male film score composers
Musicians from Iowa
People from Mandeville Canyon, Los Angeles
People from Mason City, Iowa
Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients
RCA Victor artists
Songwriters from Iowa
Tony Award winners
American male songwriters
A compose key (sometimes called multi key) is a key on a computer keyboard that indicates that the following (usually 2 or more) keystrokes trigger the insertion of an alternate character, typically a precomposed character or a symbol.

For instance, typing  followed by  and then  will insert ñ.

Compose keys are most popular on Linux and other systems using the X Window System, but software exists to implement them on Windows and macOS.

History
The Compose Character key was introduced by engineers at Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) on the LK201 keyboard, available since 1983 with the VT220 terminal. The keyboard included an LED indicating that a Compose sequence is on-going. While the LK201 introduced the group of command keys between the alphanumerical block and the numerical keypad, and the "inverted T" arrangement of arrow keys, which have become standard, the compose key by contrast did not become a standard.

In 1987, Sun Microsystems released the Sun4, the first dedicated Unix workstation that had a compose key. On the keyboards of Sun Type 5 and 6 workstations, the Compose LED is placed in the keycap (see picture below).

ISO/IEC 9995-7 designed a graphical symbol for this key, in ISO/IEC 9995-7 as symbol 15 "Compose Character", and in ISO 7000 "Graphical symbols for use on equipment" as symbol ISO-7000-2021. This symbol is encoded in Unicode as .

Because Microsoft Windows and macOS do not support a compose key by default, the key does not exist on most keyboards designed for modern PC hardware. When software supports compose key behaviour, some other key is used. Common examples are the right-hand Windows key, the  key, or one of the  keys. There is no LED or other indicator that a compose sequence is ongoing.

Compose sequences

If the Compose key is not also a modifier key, then key rollover means the compose key does not have to be released before the subsequent keystrokes. This makes it possible for experienced typists to enter composed characters rapidly.

Earlier versions of compose sequences followed handwriting and the overstrike technique by putting the letter first and diacritics second. For example  produced the character ñ. This order is still in use, however the inverse order known from accent-mark dead keys present on the last typewriters is used today:  for ñ. This allows multiple diacritics, for instance typing  for ấ.

Non-accented characters are generally constructed from letters that when overtyped or sequenced would produce something like the character. For instance  will produce the copyright symbol ©, and  will produce Æ.

There is no intrinsic limit on sequence length, which should respect both the rules of mnemonics and ergonomics, and feasibility within a comprehensive compose tree. For example,  might be inserted by , where  indicates circled characters,  indicates inverse,  indicates sans-serif, and  indicates the final character.

Compared to other input methods

The primary advantage of a compose key is that the sequence used to select the character can be made up of any letters, numbers, or symbols available on the keyboard. This allows the sequence to be more mnemonic, so it is easier to remember, possible to guess at if unknown, and can support far greater numbers of characters.

A dead key requires the first character in any sequence to be a dead key, and most systems try to make which dead key used be part of the character selection (this makes sense for accent marks, and is extended to other symbols for consistency). For instance a dead key might require inputting  for ß, while a compose key solution uses . Another example is ⅔ which is entered by , whereas a single dead key solution uses a less intuitive keystroke such as  ( is already taken for ⅓).

Modifier keys such as  are even more limited as typically only one other key from the keyboard is utilized to select the character. This means that, for example, if + is chosen to input Á the  key is now unavailable for use and other keys must be chosen to input, for instance, À.

Alt codes or Unicode numerical input could almost be considered a compose key, but with unintuitive numbers, instead of mnemonics, as the selector.

Modern GUI character choosers often require a search function that is not much different than the compose sequences to locate a character quickly.

The primary disadvantage is that compose sequences always require at least one more keystroke. Inconvenient placement of the compose key can also slow typing.

Software support

X Window System
X header files call the Compose Key the "Multi_key". On Xorg the default Compose Key is +, (while pressing  before  is the "fourth keyboard level modifier", a different key). As this is rather inconvenient (especially for keyboards without an ) it is common to select a keyboard layout where another key such as the right-hand  or  is mapped to the compose key, this option is normally available in the settings of the desktop environment. The X keyboard driver does not allow the key used for Compose to also function as a modifier. On modern systems a vast number of compose sequences are supported.

Windows
On Microsoft Windows, a few programs such as PuTTY provide compose-key support. To emulate the compose key for all software, keyboard shortcut utilities are often involved. There are also a number of open-source utilities (such as WinCompose, AllChars, Compose-Keys, or Compose). Installable keyboard layouts (such as KbdEdit) are available that contain a compose key assigned to one of the keys like  or . They work by using the dead-key chaining feature that is more commonly used to input letters with multiple diacritics. Such keyboard layouts can also be programmed directly in C (the language Windows drivers are written in), compiled using the free-of-charge Windows Driver Kit, and packaged using the free-of-charge Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator 1.4, compatible up to the latest versions of the OS.

macOS
Although the Cocoa text input system allows entry of many alternate and accented characters natively in macOS, a true compose-key solution isn't built in. At least one has been implemented using the Karabiner utility, which works with all applications, as does the use of keyboard drivers where Compose is implemented using the dead key chaining feature.

Chrome OS
Although Chrome OS is supplied with a larger repertoire of glyphs than most competitors, the chords needed to achieve them are not always as obvious as the Compose concept provides. Google has made available an add-on (ComposeKey) to compete in this market.

DOS
Under DOS, compose key support depended on the running application, or on a loadable keyboard driver. For example, Lotus 1-2-3 used  as compose key to allow easier input of many special characters of the Lotus International Character Set (LICS) and Lotus Multi-Byte Character Set (LMBCS).

Common compose combinations
The table shown below shows some of the default compositions for the X.Org server. For modern systems which support Unicode, the table below is far from complete.

See also 
 Alt code
 Dead key
 Combining character
 Digraphs and trigraphs

References

External links
 Xlib Compose Keys for en_US.UTF-8 official current X.org X11 Compose Key sequence
 Linux Compose Key Sequences with equivalent Unicode mappings

Computer keys Dattaram Wadkar (1929 – 7 June 2007), was a prominent Indian music arranger and music director known for his association with the legendary music composers Shankar–Jaikishan and as an independent music composer for movies like Ab Dilli Dur Nahin, Zindagi aur Khwab, and Parvarish.

Career
Dattaram moved to Bombay in 1942 where he learnt tabla and the dholak. Shankar introduced him to the Prithvi theatres and soon he joined Shankar – Jaikishan's team as arranger and percussionist, Dattaram managed Shankar–Jaikishan's rhythm section. Shankar–Jaikishan encouraged and supported Dattaram to compose music for films independently.

References

1929 births
2007 deaths
Indian music arrangers