Andrew Gold mother was singer Marni Nixon, who provided the singing voice for numerous actresses, notably Natalie Wood in "West Side Story", Deborah Kerr in "The King and I", and Audrey Hepburn in "My Fair Lady"; his father was Ernest Gold, an Austrian-born composer who won an Academy Award for his score for the movie "Exodus". He had two younger sisters. Gold began writing songs at the age of 13. Abroad in England for school, the 16-year-old Gold scored his first recording contract on the strength of a selection of demos he submitted to Polydor Records' London office. That contract resulted in
Marni Nixon recordings. Born in Altadena, California to Charles Nixon and Margaret Elsa (née Wittke) McEathron, Nixon was a child film actress who also played the violin and began singing at an early age in choruses, including performing solos with the Roger Wagner Chorale. She went on to study singing and opera with, among others, Vera Schwarz, Carl Ebert, Boris Goldovsky and Sarah Caldwell. In 1947, having adopted the stage name Marni Nixon, she made her Hollywood Bowl solo debut in "Carmina Burana" with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under conductor Leopold Stokowski. Nixon's career in film started in 1948 when she sang