Walter Schumann (October 8, 1913 – August 21, 1958) was an American composer for film,

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

, and the

theater Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

. His notable works include the score for '' The Night of the Hunter'' and the ''Dragnet'' Theme; the latter of which earned Schumann the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition in 1955. His Broadway musical, ''

3 for Tonight ''3 for Tonight'' is a musical revue in two acts with music by composer Walter Schumann and lyrics by Robert Wells (songwriter), Robert Wells. In addition to the original material by Schumann and Wells, the revue also included the song "In That Gre ...

'', won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical in 1955.

Career

Schumann was born in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

in 1913. By the early 1930s, he was attending law school at USC when he abruptly quit his studies to perform in a college dance band. Eventually, the members of the band went their separate ways but Schumann continued on within the music industry, working with Eddie Cantor on Cantor's radio show, and recording with

Andre Kostelanetz Andre Kostelanetz (russian: Абрам Наумович Костелянец; December 22, 1901 – January 13, 1980) was a Russian-born American popular orchestral music conductor and arranger who was one of the major exponents of popular orch ...

. Following the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, Schumann enlisted, eventually becoming the musical director of the

Armed Forces Radio Service The American Forces Network (AFN) is a government television and radio broadcast service the U.S. military provides to those stationed or assigned overseas. Headquartered at Fort George G. Meade, Maryland, AFN's broadcast operations, which ...

. He worked with most of the major acts of the war on all the radio shows AFRS produced during this time. After the war, he returned to Los Angeles and worked in the movie and television industry as a composer and arranger, mostly on several Abbott & Costello films. In 1949, Schumann was asked to compose a new theme for a police detective show about to make its debut on the NBC Radio network. He began his theme with a four-note motif—quite possibly the second most famous four-note motif after Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. ''Dragnet'' became a smash hit on the radio, and then television and Schumann's theme quickly became instantly recognizable. He wrote one

opera Opera is a form of theatre in which music is a fundamental component and dramatic roles are taken by singers. Such a "work" (the literal translation of the Italian word "opera") is typically a collaboration between a composer and a libr ...

, ''John Brown's Body'', which premiered in Los Angeles in 1953 and subsequently ran for sixty-five performances on

Broadway Broadway may refer to: Theatre * Broadway Theatre (disambiguation) * Broadway theatre, theatrical productions in professional theatres near Broadway, Manhattan, New York City, U.S. ** Broadway (Manhattan), the street **Broadway Theatre (53rd Stree ...

at the

New Century Theatre The New Century Theatre was a Broadway theater in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City, at 205–207 West 58th Street and 926–932 Seventh Avenue. Opened on October 6, 1921, as Jolson's 59th Street Theatre, the theater was desig ...

. This was followed by the musical revue ''

'' which premiered on Broadway in 1955 in a production directed by and starring

Gower Champion Gower Carlyle Champion (June 22, 1919 – August 25, 1980) was an American actor, theatre director, choreographer, and dancer. Early years Champion was born on June 22, 1919, in Geneva, Illinois, as the son of John W. Champion and Beatrice Car ...

. It won the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical in 1955. Around this time, Schumann gathered together 20 talented vocalists and ''The Voices Of Walter Schumann'' was born. The ensemble recorded several easy-listening albums, similar to those recorded by Jackie Gleason, for both Capitol Records and RCA Victor. By 1955, Schumann was busy composing and conducting the score to the classic

Robert Mitchum Robert Charles Durman Mitchum (August 6, 1917 – July 1, 1997) was an American actor. He rose to prominence with an Academy Award nomination for the Best Supporting Actor for ''The Story of G.I. Joe'' (1945), followed by his starring in ...

film '' The Night of the Hunter'' and won an Emmy for his wildly popular ''Dragnet'' theme. He recorded a space-age themed, spoken-word album titled ''Exploring the Unknown'', and his "Voices" troupe recorded a popular, 19-track Christmas album, ''The Voices of Christmas''. The latter album was reissued on

compact disc The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in Oc ...

Collector's Choice Music Collectors' Choice Music (CCM) is an Itasca, Illinois, company originally primarily in two businesses, but since 2010 only in the second. CCM was best known for reissuing albums originally recorded in LP record form as compact disc The com ...

in November 2007 – 52 years after its initial debut both as an LP and 3-record 45 RPM set. There was a tribute to him on the centennial anniversary of his birth.Centennial Birthday Tribute to Walter Schumann
/ref>

Death

In 1956 and 1957 Schumann continued to record with the Voices and they appeared on the first season of

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

's ''

The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford ''The Ford Show'' (also known as ''The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford'' and ''The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show'') is an American variety program, starring singer and folk humorist Tennessee Ernie Ford, which aired on NBC on Thursday eveni ...

''. However, by the summer of 1958, poor health prompted Schumann to be admitted to the Mayo Clinic, where he underwent one of the first open heart surgeries in the United States. Complications arose following the operation, and Schumann died on August 21, 1958, aged 44, just weeks before the third season of '' The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show'' was scheduled to begin. Members of Schumann's "Voices" ensemble were stunned by his sudden death but decided to continue performing. They were renamed "The Top Twenty," and they carried on with Ford for another five years.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Schumann, Walter American film score composers American male film score composers American opera composers Broadway composers and lyricists Male opera composers 1913 births 1958 deaths Musicians from New York City USC Gould School of Law alumni 20th-century classical musicians 20th-century classical composers 20th-century American composers Classical musicians from New York (state) 20th-century American male musicians