Alex North wrote the music for Unchained Melody as the theme for the prison film Unchained, It has become a standard and one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century, with over 1,500 recordings made by more than 670 artists, in multiple languages.
15 Facts About Alex North
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Alex North composed music for more than twenty-six documentaries for the War Department while in the service.
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Alex North managed to integrate his modernism into typical film music leitmotif structure, rich with themes.
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Alex North won the 1968 Golden Globe award for his music to The Shoes of the Fisherman.
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Alex North's commissioned score for 2001: A Space Odyssey is notorious for having been discarded by director Stanley Kubrick.
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Alex North was commissioned to write a jazz score for Nero Wolfe, a 1959 CBS-TV series based on Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe characters, starring William Shatner as Archie Goodwin and Kurt Kasznar as Nero Wolfe.
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Alex North was one of several composers who brought the influence of contemporary concert music into film, in part marked by an increased use of dissonance and complex rhythms.
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Alex North was nominated for a Grammy Award for his score for the 1976 television miniseries Rich Man, Poor Man, and went on to score the sequel Rich Man, Poor Man Book II and the 1978 miniseries The Word.
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Alex North is known for his opening to the CBS television anthology series Playhouse 90 and the 1965 ABC television miniseries FDR.
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Alex North was recognized for his lifetime achievement in 2004 from the Sammy Film Music Awards.
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In 2016, the Library of Congress added Alex North's 1951 recording of his score to "A Streetcar Named Desire" to its National Recording Registry.
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Alex North died on September 8,1991 in Los Angeles, California.
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Alex North was cremated and his ashes were scattered at sea.
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Alex North was nominated for fifteen Academy Awards throughout his career, one for Best Original Song, the rest in the Best Original Score category, making him the most-nominated composer to have never won.
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Alex North was however awarded an Honorary Academy Award in 1986; he was the first composer to receive it.