Bernard Herrmann (June 29, 1911 – December 24, 1975) was an American composer noted for his work in motion pictures. In over forty scores Bernard Herrmann[ enriched the work of such directors as Orson Welles (Citizen Kane), Alfred Hitchcock (North By Northwest, Vertigo, Psycho, Marnie etc.), Francois Truffaut (Fahrenheit 451), and Martin Scorsese (Taxi Driver). From his first film (Citizen Kane) to his last (Taxi Driver)...
Alex North (December 4, 1910 - September 8, 1991) was an American composer responsible for the first jazz-based film score (A Streetcar Named Desire). North was nominated for 15 Oscars, but did not win until receiving the lifetime achievement Academy Award in 1986. Among his many film scores are Spartacus, Cleopatra, Streetcar Named Desire, Death of A Salesman, Dragonslayer, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, and Viva Zapata.
Max Steiner was an Austrian composer who achieved legendary status as the creator of hundreds of classic American film scores. As a child he was astonishingly musically gifted, composing complex works as a teenager and completing the course of study at Vienna's Hochschule fuer Musik und Darstellende Kunst in only one year, at the age of sixteen. He studied under Gustav Mahler and, before the age of twenty, made his living as a conductor and as composer of works for the theater, the concert hall, and vaudeville.