Oscar-winning film composer and symphony orchestra conductor Andr\u00e9 Previn died Thursday at his home in Manhattan, his manager confirmed. He was 89.<\/b>
\nOscar-winning film composer and symphony orchestra conductor Andre Previn died Thursday at his home in Manhattan, his manager confirmed to the New York Times. He was 89.
The former enfant terrible of motion picture scoring and accomplished jazz pianist was honored with four Academy Awards. He won the first two, for best music \u2014 scoring of a musical picture, for \u201cGigi\u201d and \u201cPorgy & Bess\u201d in 1958 and 1959, respectively, while still in his 20s; he then won two for best score \u2014 adaptation or treatment in 1963 and 1964 for \u201cIrma la Douce\u201d and \u201cMy Fair Lady,\u201d respectively.
He later abandoned films to conduct such esteemed orchestras as the London Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Previn\u2019s jazz influence was pianist Art Tatum and, from the age of 12, he developed a proficiency in jazz piano, which led to his first film assignment at age 16, while still a senior at Beverly Hills High School (where he teamed musically with songwriter and fellow student Richard M. Sherman): Previn transcribed an improvised jazz number for concert pianist Jose Iturbi to play in the film \u201cHoliday in Mexico.\u201d Over the next few years, Previn worked at MGM \u2014 where his great-uncle, Charles Previn, who\u2019d been music director at Universal, did a brief stint \u2014 playing rehearsal piano and other odd jobs, including synchronizing film soundtracks.
In 1949 he was given his first original score assignment, \u201cThe Sun Comes Up,\u201d a Lassie picture, about which he recalled, \u201cI thought it was easy, but I have since put myself through the wringer of watching it on a television rerun, and it\u2019s the most inept score you ever heard.\u201d
It was, however, good enough to win him a contract as a composer-conductor at MGM, a career that was interrupted by the draft in 1950. During his military stint he wrote arrangements for the Sixth Army band and played in San Francisco jazz spots. Resuming his career in 1952, he adapted such stage musicals as \u201cKiss Me Kate,\u201d \u201cKismet,\u201d \u201cSilk Stockings\u201d and \u201cBells Are Ringing\u201d for the bigscreen. His work on \u201cGigi,\u201d originally written for the screen in 1958, and \u201cPorgy and Bess\u201d the following year, brought him scoring Oscars. In the \u201960s he also scored back-to-back Oscars for scoring of 1963\u2019s \u201cIrma la Douce\u201d and for his conducting work on 1964\u2019s \u201cMy Fair Lady.\u201d
Previn composed original scores for the musical \u201cIt\u2019s Always Fair Weather\u201d in 1955 as well as part of the score for Gene Kelly\u2019s experimental 1956 film \u201cInvitation to the Dance.\u201d
In addition, he wrote songs and scores for such \u201950s films as \u201cBad Day at Black Rock,\u201d \u201cDesigning Women\u201d and \u201cHot Summer Nights.\u201d In the \u201960s and \u201970s, he wrote scores for \u201cElmer Gantry,\u201d \u201cOne, Two, Three,\u201d \u201cLong Day\u2019s Journey Into Night,\u201d \u201cKiss Me, Stupid,\u201d \u201cInside Daisy Clover,\u201d \u201cThe Fortune Cookie\u201d and \u201cRollerball.\u201d Previn contributed songs and music to \u201cThe Swinger,\u201d \u201cThoroughly Modern Millie\u201d \u201cPaint Your Wagon,\u201d \u201cGoodbye Mr. Chips,\u201d \u201cCatch 22,\u201d \u201cThe Music Lovers,\u201d \u2018Valley of the Dolls\u201d and \u201cMrs. Polifax \u2014 Spy.\u201d His final score was for 1980\u2019s Paul Simon movie \u201cOne Trick Pony,\u201d though he conducted for \u201cSix Weeks\u201d two years later.
Previn\u2019s score for 1960\u2019s \u201cThe Subterraneans\u201d reveled in his passion for jazz, which he had been recording and playing in clubs for almost 15 years, even forming a combo with Red Mitchell and Frank Kapp. Along with Shelly Manne, he recorded several jazz albums, the best seller of which was \u201cMy Fair Lady,\u201d an interpretation of the Lerner and Loewe score. A similar effort was \u201cAndre Previn and Friends Play Show Boat.\u201d
Previn also made classical recordings, starting in the 1950s, with the complete four-hand piano music of Mozart. He wrote songs for the likes of Judy Garland and Doris Day.
In 1969 he wrote the score for the Broadway tuner \u201cCoco\u201d (Alan Jay Lerner wrote the lyrics), based on the life of designer Coco Chanel; it won the Tony for best musical.
Occasionally, he would guest conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic and, by the 1960s, he began to curtail his film and jazz work to concentrate on classical music. For years he conducted in small cities to gain experience and overcome the label of a Hollywood composer.
Born Andre George Previn in Berlin, he was enrolled in the Berlin Conservatory of Music at age 6 after his father discovered he had perfect pitch. But in 1938 Previn was expelled from the conservatory for being Jewish and his family fled to Paris, where he studied at the Paris Conservatory. In 1939 the Previn family emigrated to Los Angeles, where the young Andre studied composition with Joseph Achron and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. In his teens he played in, and occasionally conducted, the California Youth Symphony and arranged and orchestrated works for local radio shows.
In 1967 he succeeded John Barbirolli as chief conductor of the Houston Symphony Orchestra. In 1968 he was named principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra. He was not renewed by Houston in 1969 but kept busy with a repertoire heavy on 20th century scores with the London Symphony, many of which were recorded, particularly after he moved from Columbia Records to RCA in the mid-\u201960s.
Also with the London Symphony he introduced a number of his own compositions, including \u201cOverture to a Comedy,\u201d in 1966.
He then moved on to the Pittsburgh Symphony, London\u2019s Royal Philharmonic and, in the mid-\u201980s, the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
He resigned in 1989 after continued battles with Music Center executive director Ernest Fleischmann.
Previn\u2019s private life was dotted with touches of scandal.
Previn was married five times, the first time to jazz singer Betty Bennett; the second time to Dory Langan aka Dory Previn, a lyricist with whom he collaborated on several Oscar-nominated film scores and who explored the collapse of their troubled marriage in an album; the third time to actress Mia Farrow, for whom he had abandoned Dory Previn (he and Farrow were subsequently divorced in the wake of her liaison with Woody Allen); the fourth time to Heather Sneddon; and the final time, in 2002, to the renowned violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, nearly 35 years his junior, after he had composed a concerto for her, titled \u201cAnne-Sophie.\u201d They divorced four years later but continued their musical partnership unabated.
Survivors include two daughters from his marriage to Bennett, Claudia Previn Stasny and Alicia \u201cLovely\u201d Previn (a violinist for the Irish band In Tua Nua and a founding member of the Young Dubliners); three biological children from his marriage to Farrow, Matthew, Sascha and Fletcher; two daughters adopted with Farrow, including Soon-Yi Previn, the latter of whom Andre Previn disavowed after the scandal involving Soon-Yi and Woody Allen; an adopted daughter, Li-An Mary, and a son, Lucas Alexander, from his 20-year marriage to Sneddon.
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