George Bassman was an American composer and arranger.
15 Facts About George Bassman
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George Bassman studied orchestration and composition formally, but in his teens he left home against his father's wishes to play piano in an itinerant jazz group, and subsequently worked as an arranger for Fletcher Henderson in New York.
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George Bassman peaked in that career when he and Ned Washington wrote "I'm Getting Sentimental Over You" for the bandleader Tommy Dorsey.
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George Bassman worked in radio as an arranger for Andre Kostelanetz, and made the move to Hollywood in the mid-1930s.
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George Bassman later went to work at MGM, where he composed music for the Marx Brothers vehicles A Day at the Races, Go West, and The Big Store, as well as writing or arranging music for such musicals as Lady Be Good and Cabin in the Sky.
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George Bassman worked on Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's 1939 musical The Wizard of Oz, Babes in Arms, and For Me and My Gal.
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George Bassman worked on dramas, including Vincente Minnelli's The Clock and Tay Garnett's The Postman Always Rings Twice.
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George Bassman's career was interrupted in the midst of the Red Scare when he admitted in testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee that he had been a member of the Communist party.
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George Bassman left Hollywood after the studios closed their doors to him and returned to New York where he found the theater still open to him.
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George Bassman was engaged to orchestrate the show Guys and Dolls, and composed music for various shows and revues.
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George Bassman quietly kept his hand in movies, where independent producers were willing to hire him.
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George Bassman had seemingly beaten the blacklist, and without too much inconvenience, but then his professional luck ran out, oddly enough upon his return to MGM for the first time in more than a decade.
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George Bassman clashed with the makers of what could have been a triumphant comeback, on Ride the High Country.
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George Bassman closed out his film career with Mail Order Bride, and saw several of his scores rejected.
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George Bassman died surrounded by his loved ones in Los Angeles in 1997.