Georgie Stoll

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Georgie Stoll (born George Martin Stoll; May 7, 1905 – January 18, 1985) was a

musical director, conductor, Academy Award-winning composer, and jazz violinist, associated with the Golden Age of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
musicals and performers from the 1940s to 1960s. He was also later credited as George E. Stoll (sometimes without the middle initial).

Violin prodigy

Stoll was born in

Shell Oil Program. In 1934, Bing Crosby selected Stoll as his musical director for the second series of the CBS Woodbury radio programs Bing Crosby Entertains.[3] For Decca, Georgie Stoll and His Orchestra accompanied Crosby and Louis Armstrong in the successful 1936 recordings of Pennies from Heaven
. Stoll and his orchestra appeared on screen the same year in MGM's Swing Banditry.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer musical director

In 1937, Stoll joined the

The Wizard of Oz.[5] He was given a single "Ruby Slipper" by Judy Garland upon completion of the Wizard of Oz (where he orchestrated the tornado and Wicked Witch's Castle escape scenes with George Bassman).[6]

At the studio Stoll worked frequently with the director Edward Buzzell and producers Arthur Freed, Roger Edens and Joe Pasternak. He was also a favorite pinochle-playing buddy of studio head Louis B. Mayer.[7]

Stoll kept his connection with the jazz world and visited clubs looking for rising talent. He recruited one of the first black arrangers at MGM, Calvin Jackson with whom he worked on the original music for his 1945 Oscar-winning score for the Kelly-Sinatra Anchors Aweigh.[8] Stoll also encouraged the teenaged André Previn and used him to write many arrangements.[9]

In 1943, Stoll conducted Garland through the first two of her original cast albums for Decca Records from her popular movies, such as Girl Crazy and Meet Me in St. Louis, which included the hit single The Trolley Song (#3 on Billboard's Best Selling charts).[10] His other recordings were quite eclectic: spanning the popular (often with harmonica virtuosoes Leo Diamond or Larry Adler), easy listening orchestral (e.g. MGM's Hollywood Melodies album) to the postwar American sessions of the tenor Lauritz Melchior.[11]

Later career

Stoll's career received a boost when Pasternak hired him and his old colleague George Sidney to work with Elvis Presley on some of his later and better pictures (e.g. Viva Las Vegas and Spinout). He also composed the underscore for the 1960 Spring break romp Where the Boys Are and another Connie Francis followup.

After 9 Oscar nominations (last in 1962 for

Billy Rose's Jumbo), Stoll retired upon completing the original music for the Ann-Margret vehicle Made in Paris
. Stoll died, aged 79, in Monterey, California.

In September 2001, Stoll's

Butterfields auction house. The actor Kevin Spacey later revealed that he anonymously secured it for $156,875 and subsequently returned it to the Academy.[12]

In October 2009, Stoll's Amati violin was sold by

Nicolo Amati sold at auction.[13]

References

  1. ^ Times Herald (Olean, NY), 7 April 1938.
  2. ^ The Oakland Tribune, 28 November 1927; Ogden Standard Examiner (Ogden, Utah), 12 July 1929.
  3. ^ Larry Crosby (2005), Bing, Kessinger Publishing, p. 202
  4. ^ Lawrence B. Thomas (1972), The MGM Years, Columbia House, p. 123.
  5. ^ Arthur Rollini, Thirty Years with the Big Bands, pp. 72-73.
  6. ^ Nicholas McNeil
  7. ^ Christopher Finch (1979), Gone Hollywood, p. 342.
  8. ^ Clora Bryant & Steven Isoardi (1999), Central Avenue Sounds: Jazz in Los Angeles, University of California Press, p. 68.
  9. ^ Gene Lees (2006), Portrait of Johnny: The Life of John Herndon Mercer, Hal Leonard Publishing Corp. p. 300.
  10. ^ Ron O'Brien (1996), "Liner Notes", p. 7, to MCA Records/Decca CD, Judy Garland: The Complete Decca Original Cast Recordings, 1996 (MCAD-11491).
  11. ^ Billboard, vol. 60 no. 2, 10 January 1948, p. 30.
  12. ^ Emanuel Levy (2003), All About Oscar, Continuum Int'l Publishing, p. 29.
  13. ^ "violin by Nicolò Amati, 1648c (Georgie Stoll)". Cozio.com. Archived from the original on 2012-03-20. Retrieved 2012-03-10.

External links

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