You may not know Alfred Newman’s name – but you know his work
Did you ever watch a Star Wars film in a movie theater?
Can you picture it?
The lights dim, the screen is black, and then you hear it – the tap tap tap of the snare drums that builds to a drum roll.
The 20th Century Fox logo appears on the screen, and the searchlights move in the background as the orchestral horns begin.
The logo dissolves and you see ‘Lucasfilm Ltd’ on the screen as the strings crescendo.
And just like that, you’ve been primed for something exciting to begin.
That 20 seconds of musical magic is officially called the ‘20th Century Fox Fanfare.’
But when Disney purchased Lucasfilm in 2012, the 20th Century Fox logo and Fanfare disappeared. I remember seeing Episode VII (the first Star Wars film made under Disney) in the theatre when it came out in 2015.
I missed that drum roll.
But what’s the story of the Fanfare?
I was curious...
That theme you may remember (if your Star Wars experience started with Luke or Anakin Skywalker) was composed by Alfred Newman in 1933.
Newman was born in Connecticut in 1900, and was recognized early as a piano prodigy. By his teens he was working in New York as an accompanist to both vaudeville stars and opera singers, and by the 1920s, he was an in-demand pit conductor on Broadway. In 1930, Newman was summoned to work as the conductor on two early Hollywood musicals. The ‘talking pictures’ were starting, and Alfred arrived in Hollywood at the perfect time.
Alfred Newman was among the first musicians to compose and conduct original music during Hollywood's Golden Age of movies, and he and his fellow composers, Max Steiner and Dimitri Tiomkin, were considered the ‘three godfathers of film music.’
Newman served as the musical director of Fox for 20 years, and during that time he scored and conducted the music for more than 200 films, including best-picture Oscar winners How Green Was My Valley, Gentleman’s Agreement, and All About Eve. Though he composed the original 20th Century Fox Fanfare in 1933, he added the soaring strings in 1954 for Fox’s new CinemaScope presentation.
The Fanfare accompanied nearly all Fox pictures for decades, though its popularity was fading by the 1970s. But the Fanfare saw a second life when director George Lucas wanted it included at the start of his 1977 film, Star Wars.
Composer John Williams (who, interestingly, started his career as a pianist working on Newman’s scores at Fox) was hired to compose the music for Star Wars. Williams composed the Star Wars theme in the same key as the Fanfare, treating it as part of the score. The two pieces of music flow together seamlessly.
The popularity of Star Wars revived Newman’s Fanfare, and it was used to signal the beginning of the six Star Wars films made from 1977 to 2005. The sound of the Fanfare became ingrained in generations of Star Wars fans who watched the films in theaters, on VHS tapes, and DVDs. For many, the Fanfare was more associated with Star Wars than it was with Fox.
That’s why so many fans noticed when the Fanfare (and Fox logo) were scrapped after Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012. While fans could accept that the new films made under Disney wouldn’t include the Fox Fanfare, they were irritated when Disney scrubbed the Fanfare from new digital releases of all the older films (except for the 1977 original – the only Star Wars film Fox owned).
Alfred Newman wasn’t alive to witness the renaissance of his Fanfare, as he died in 1970, long before Star Wars mania took hold. Although he was nominated for 45 Academy Awards and won nine (the third highest ever won by an individual), his Fanfare may be the most recognizable piece of music he created.
But Alfred’s musical talent lives on.
If you see the surname ‘Newman’ in the credits for a film score, the person is probably related to Alfred. The Newmans are the most nominated Academy Award extended family, with a collective 92 nominations in various music categories.
Two of Alfred’s brothers scored dozens of films, while Alfred’s sons David and Tom have scored more than 175 films combined, from The Shawshank Redemption and American Beauty to Skyfall and 1917. Alfred’s nephew Randy Newman is also an Academy Award winning composer, whose music can be heard in many films, including nine Disney/Pixar films.
The Newman family’s connection with John Williams has continued over the years. Alfred’s brother Lionel and Alfred’s sons Tom and David have worked for (or alongside) Williams on various films and projects. And in the fall of 2017, David conducted the New York Philharmonic through Williams’s Star Wars scores, and saw the influence his father’s 1933 Fanfare still has on people – after all these years.
“As soon as that logo started, people started screaming,” he said.
And though it seemed like the logo and Alfred’s Fanfare might be lost to a galaxy far, far away, this story has a happy ending.
In 2019, Disney acquired Fox, and (sound the orchestral horns!) the Fanfare returned to the original Star Wars films.
And trust me, it’s just as magical as ever.
Check out the Star Wars Fanfare to see what I mean:
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-Beth