William Lava

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William "Bill" Lava
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
GenresFilm score
Occupation(s)Composer
Years active1936–1971

William "Bill" Benjamin Lava (March 18, 1911 – February 20, 1971) was a

animated cartoons from 1962 to 1969, replacing the deceased Milt Franklyn
, making him the last composer and arranger in the classic era of Warner Bros. Cartoons.

Lava's music was markedly different from that of Franklyn and previous composer Carl Stalling, with a tendency towards atonality. A sense of tension is often created in Lava's scores using sequences based on the notes of the diminished seventh chord.

Lava also composed and sang the theme to the TV western series

Cheyenne and composed one episode of the series Gunsmoke
("Little Girl," April 1, 1961).

Career

Lava was educated at Von Humboldt Grammar School and

Lane Tech High School in Chicago, then attended Northwestern University where his major was journalism. He studied conducting with Albert Coates in Los Angeles. Lava also wrote short stories for various magazines and was the editor of Northwestern Commerce Magazine and associate editor of Purple Parrot..[1]

Arriving in Hollywood in 1936, Lava arranged for musical radio programs, then scored a number of serials such as

serials
. Among his compositions during this era were The Moonrise Song (It Just Dawned On Me).

During World War II Lava composed music for various United States Department of War documentary films.

Hardy Boys segments of The Mickey Mouse Club. While he was later best known for cartoon music, Lava did not score any cartoons at Disney, though he is credited with the score for 1955's TV segment The Story of the Silly Symphony.[2] In 1953, Lava provided the music score for the Ed Wood film Glen or Glenda
, although he would not receive onscreen credit.

On his arrival at the Warner Bros.' cartoon studio, Lava's first assignment was the

Good Noose
, also released in 1962. Although Lava's previous work also sounded mechanical, it was greatly enhanced by the studio orchestra. However, at the time of his arrival, Warner Bros. reduced, and later dismantled, the full-time studio orchestra. Without the music budget that he was accustomed to, Lava was forced to work with a much smaller orchestra to record his scores.

Television

Lava was responsible for many scores, including those heard in eleven

Tired and Feathered to Clippety Clobbered) used a set of generic musical cues, which did not follow the action closely as scores did in other Warner Brothers productions. However, he did manage to produce proper scores for two out of the three Road Runner/Wile E. shorts produced fully by DePatie-Freleng, Rushing Roulette and The Wild Chase (also featuring Speedy Gonzales and Sylvester
).

Overall, as mentioned above, Lava’s first short at Warner Bros. was the 1962

Format Productions (only serving as supervisor on Quacker Tracker) and for the entirety of the shorts produced at Warner Bros.-Seven Arts
.

Lava also composed music for 19 of the 124

Congratulations It's Pink. Following this, the remaining shorts would be aired on television as part of The All New Pink Panther Show (although they would be rereleased theatrically), where all shorts utilized music cues composed by Steve DePatie (son of series co-producer David H. DePatie). Lava also co-authored the music for the movie PT-109 , and composed music for The Battle of Britain and the documentary Hitler Lives.[4]

Lava co-wrote the theme (with Irving Taylor) and most of the incidental music for the TV series F Troop. Lava also composed the silent-film music for the "bookend" sequences at the beginning and end of the 1961 Twilight Zone episode "Once Upon a Time" - performed by pianist Ray Turner.

Lava was also employed as Music Supervisor with David Rose in a couple of seasons of Bonanza.

Although Lava's feature film work was not as prolific, he composed the scores to movies such as Wall of Noise (1963), Chamber of Horrors (1966), Chubasco (1968), In Enemy Country (1968), Assignment to Kill (1968), The Good Guys and the Bad Guys (1969) and Dracula vs. Frankenstein (1971).

Personal life

William Lava was the son of Abraham Lava (1882–1958) and Rose Chernavsky (1886–1938). He married Lenore Goldman on December 31, 1932 in Chicago, Illinois. They had two daughters, Charmaine (1938–2012) and Rochelle Lava (1939–1997).[5]

A staunch anti-communist, Lava became known as an outspoken critic of the Cuban Revolution[citation needed]. He spoke in favor of direct military action against the Castro regime,[citation needed] continuing to protest in this manner from 1959 until his death.

References

  1. Thomas Y. Crowell Company
    . Retrieved February 27, 2012.
  2. Cocatalog.LoC.gov
    . Retrieved February 27, 2012.
  3. ^ "DePatie-Freleng WB Cartoons". Davemackey.com. 2010. Archived from the original on May 22, 2012. Retrieved February 27, 2012.
  4. ^ "William Lava papers, 1942-1969". Archived from the original on May 25, 2018. Retrieved April 3, 2020.
  5. ^ "United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K9C2-W4Z : July 27, 2019), William Love, Councilmanic District 3, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Township, Los Angeles, California, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 60–189, sheet 5A, line 16, family 114, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 – 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, roll 404

External links

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