Meredith Willson Hollywood
Did Wilson write music for any movies?
Did Meredith Willson 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), 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
His work in films included composing the score for Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940) (Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score),
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
Anthony D. Asher (born May 2, 1939) is an American songwriter and advertising copywriter who is best known for his collaborations with Brian Wilson (of the Beach Boys) and Roger Nichols in the 1960s. Asher co-wrote eight songs on the Beach Boys' 1966 album Pet Sounds, including the singles "God Only Knows", "Wouldn't It Be Nice", and "Caroline, No". According to Asher, he mainly served as a lyricist for Wilson's songs, but in some cases also contributed musical ideas. Asher also composed jingles, such as Mattel's slogan "You can tell it's Mattel—it's swell!", and contributed songs to The Partridge Family.

Background
Tony Asher was born in London on May 2, 1939, the son of American actress Laura La Plante and film producer Irving Asher. He and his mother moved to Los Angeles before he was six months old, while Irving remained in England to serve in the US Army during World War II. As a child, Asher played piano and composed, later co-writing "That's Life", a hit for Frank Sinatra in 1966. Asher graduated from UCLA with a degree in journalism and subsequently found employment at the Carson/Roberts/Inc. advertising agency. Asher devised the company's Mattel slogan, "You can tell it's Mattel—it's swell!", a success that led him to write popular ads and jingles for Barbie and Chatty Cathy dolls. His colleagues at the agency included Terry Gilliam and Joel Siegel. Asher also collaborated on songwriting with Van Dyke Parks.

Pet Sounds

Meeting Wilson
According to most sources, Asher met Brian Wilson while recording at United Western Recorders in 1965. Asher was a 26 year old copywriter who had been working on advertising jingles and had felt that the Beach Boys were distinct from most artists, releasing a string of hits where "you wouldn't even know, necessarily, that it was gonna be a Beach Boys record from the first bar or something." However, although he was a fan, he "didn't own any of their albums. I had Bill Evans albums."

Asher explained, "I think we were recording some music, or voice-overs for a commercial and I had heard that the Beach Boys were in another studio. During a break, we kind of hung out in the hallway and eventually, sort of snuck into the booth and Brian was in the studio [alone]. ... eventually, we met." Looking for a clean break from the by-then-famous Beach Boys sound (associated with surfing and cars) and not wanting to collaborate with any of the songwriters with whom he had previously worked, Wilson called Asher around December 1965, and within ten days they started to write the songs that formed the bulk of Pet Sounds.

Other sources state that the pair had met during a social gathering at mutual friend Loren Schwartz's house. Asher said that Schwartz "had been a classmate of mine at Santa Monica College ... Occasionally I would see Brian [at Loren's house]—but [Brian] never stayed long." Wilson biographer Peter Ames Carlin dates the initial meeting between Asher and Wilson to early 1963. Schwartz himself claimed that he was introduced to Wilson by Asher, "my best pal in college", at Western Studio. Asked why he felt Asher was the right collaborator, Wilson responded that he "thought he was a cool person" and was impressed that Asher had known Schwartz, "a very brainy guy, a real verbal type person."

Collaboration
Wilson and Asher wrote together for about three weeks. According to Asher, a typical writing session started either with Wilson's playing melody or chord patterns that he was working on, by discussing a recent record that Wilson liked the feel of, or by discussing a subject that Wilson had always wanted to write a song about. Asher's contribution to the music itself was minimal, serving mainly as a source of second opinion for Wilson as he worked out possible melodies and chord progressions, although the two did trade ideas as the songs evolved. He characterized the experience as "writing an autobiography", however, "I wouldn't limit it to Brian's autobiography." On "God Only Knows", Wilson reflected, "I think Tony had a musical influence on me [through his] certain love for classic songs." In turn, Asher admired the way Wilson "hunt[ed] for a chord change ... the [same] way some of us type."

Contrary to the popular conception that Wilson composed all of the music to Pet Sounds, Asher contended that he himself made significant musical contributions to "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times", "Caroline, No", and "That's Not Me".  He said that he conceived the title and subject matter to three of their eight songs. On the publishing royalties, Asher agreed to a 25% cut, an arrangement that he felt was not necessarily commensurate with his contributions. In his words, it was "a screw ... Until you consider that I was a nothing who had never done shit, and I had a chance to write with a guy who had something like nine million-selling records in a row. Well, then it doesn’t seem so bad."

In later years, Asher reflected on his interactions with Wilson and his bandmates as an "embarrassing" experience. He remembered that Wilson "exhibit[ed] this awful taste. His choice of movies, say, was invariably terrible. ... every four hours we'd spend writing songs, there'd be about 48 hours of these dopey conversations about some dumb book [about mysticism] he'd just read. Or else he'd just go on and on about girls." He added that his impression of Wilson was of "the single most irresponsible person" he had ever met, recalling that he had seen uncashed royalty checks of up to $100,000 laying around Wilson's house. He was further bemused by what he described as "the weird relationship he maintained with Marilyn ... like something out of The Flintstones. Personally, I could never understand why he'd married her."

Asked if Wilson had displayed any signs of "lunacy", Asher responded that Wilson had "fits of this uncontrollable anger. Then he'd fall apart and start crying during play-backs of certain tracks." Asher believed that the "whole claustrophobic scene with him and his family" was more to blame for Wilson's bipolar moods than his use of LSD. Asher later called Wilson a "genius musician but an amateur human being". In 2013, he said that he "didn’t mean that in the way it came out" and explained: "We all have areas of things we’re good at and things we’re not so good at, but his is so zeroed-in on music."

After their songs were completed, Asher visited a few of the recording sessions, most of which were string overdub dates. He did not have a favorable reaction when he learned of the album's title. He remembered that Wilson showed him "some proofs of the pictures they'd done at the zoo, and he told me they were thinking of calling the album Pet Sounds. I thought it was a goofy name for an album – I thought it trivialized what we had accomplished. On the other hand, I was aware that many of Brian's off-the-wall ideas had turned out to be brilliant." Asher was not called again to write for the next Beach Boys album. He said, "I wasn't surprised. Remember, Pet Sounds was considered a flop. Even before the songs were recorded, I knew that the rest of the band felt that Brian's decision to write with me was a bad decision."

Later career

In the late 1990s, Wilson and Asher rekindled their writing partnership and wrote at least four songs together. Only two were released: "This Isn't Love" and "Everything I Need". A piano-only rendition of "This Isn't Love" was issued on the 1997 compilation Songs Without Words, while a full-band live performance was released on Wilson's 2002 album Live at the Roxy Theatre. In 1997, "Everything I Need" appeared on The Wilsons, a project involving Wilson and his daughters Carnie and Wendy.

References

Further reading

External links
 

American lyricists
Living people
1939 births
Jingle writers
Musicians from Los Angeles John J. B. Wilson (born May 24, 1954) is an American copywriter and publicist. He majored in film and television at University of California, Los Angeles, and after graduation worked on film marketing campaigns.

Wilson is the co-founder of the Golden Raspberry Awards (also known as the Razzies) along with Mo Murphy, an annual ceremony dedicated to "honoring" the worst in film. In 1981, while hosting a potluck dinner at his house on the night of the Academy Awards, Wilson invited his friends to give impromptu award presentations in his living room. The following year, Los Angeles Daily News covered the event, the 1st Golden Raspberry Awards, and from behind a cardboard podium Wilson announced the Village People feature film Can't Stop the Music as the first Razzie Award for Worst Picture. Attendance doubled at Razzie award ceremonies in the following years, and by the 4th Golden Raspberry Awards the event received coverage from CNN and two major news wires. Wilson has retained an active role in the awards, and is referred to as the "Head Razzberry". His book The Official Razzie Movie Guide was published in 2005 for the 25th anniversary of the Razzie Awards.

Early life and family
Wilson grew up in Chicago, Illinois, and moved with his parents to Santa Monica, California, at age 9. Wilson claims that his parents were raised during the Great Depression and "movies meant a lot to them." Wilson also stated that he acquired a "real sense of the value of movies and an appreciation of them" from his parents At a young age he would skip school in order to watch the Academy Awards from the bleachers. He attended University of California, Los Angeles, majoring in film and television. While attending college, he managed the Fox Theater, Westwood Village. After graduating UCLA, Wilson obtained a position working on marketing campaigns for movies and as a copywriter for a sponsor of the Los Angeles Film Festival, and watched over 200 movies per year in this capacity. In 2005, Wilson stated that he still worked in film marketing, and also worked on film trailers. His marketing work has included publicity for the Academy Awards: "When they found out that I did the Razzies, they looked at me like I was a spy," said Wilson to The Blade.

, Wilson lives in Cerritos, California with his wife Barbara. They have one son.

Golden Raspberry Awards
Wilson said that after  watching a double feature of Can't Stop the Music and Xanadu for just $1, he disliked both movies enough to ask for a refund, and in the drive home thought “Man, those two movies ought to get awards for being that lousy”, and started recalling other productions that had disappointed him in 1980, particularly because he watched a large number of films to create trailers. As Wilson traditionally held pot luck dinner parties at his house in Los Angeles on the night of the Academy Awards, in 1981, after the 53rd Academy Awards had completed for the evening, Wilson gave his friends ballots to vote on worst in film, and organized an impromptu award ceremony in his living room, at a podium made of cardboard in a tacky tuxedo, with a foam ball attached to a broomstick as a faux microphone. The impromptu ceremony was a success, and the following week a press release about his event released by Wilson was picked up by a few local newspapers, including a mention in the Los Angeles Daily News with the headline: "Take These Envelopes, Please".

The term raspberry is used in its irreverent sense, as in "blowing a raspberry". Wilson commented to the author of Blame It on the Dog: "When I registered the term with the Library of Congress in 1980, they asked me, 'Why raspberry? What's the significance of that?' But since then, razz has pretty much permeated the culture. We couldn't have done it without Hollywood's help." Wilson is referred to as "Ye Olde Head Razzberry". The ceremony's program is modeled after the Academy Awards, but is "deliberately low-end and tacky". The awards themselves typically cost US$4.79 each, in the form of a "golfball-sized raspberry" which sits atop a Super 8 mm film reel; the whole of which is spray-painted gold.

Approximately three dozen people came to the 1st Golden Raspberry Awards. The 2nd Golden Raspberry Awards had double the attendance as the first, and the 3rd awards ceremony had double this number. By the 4th Golden Raspberry Awards ceremony, CNN and two major wire services covered the event. Wilson realized that by scheduling the Golden Raspberry Awards prior to the Academy Awards, the ceremony would get more press coverage: "We finally figured out you couldn't compete with the Oscars on Oscar night, but if you went the night before, when the press from all over the world are here and they are looking for something to do, it could well catch on," he said to BBC News. 

Wilson's book The Official Razzie Movie Guide was published in 2005 to mark the 25th anniversary of the awards; he had previously authored Everything I Know I Learned at the Movies in 1996. In addition to Razzie winners, The Official Razzie Movie Guide also includes Wilson's "100 favorites among the Worst Movies Ever Made".

Works

See also
 1st Golden Raspberry Awards
 Golden Raspberry Award

References

Sources

External links

 

1954 births
Living people
Golden Raspberry Awards
People from Cerritos, California
People from Chicago
UCLA Film School alumni