Movie Soundtrack Composer Elmer Bernstein

Elmer Bernstein

Elmer Bernstein

Elmer Bernstein

Elmer Bernstein

Elmer Bernstein

Elmer Bernstein

The great Elmer Bernstein.

Elmer Bernstein was born in New York City, the son of Selma (née Feinstein, 1901-1991), from Ukraine, and Edward Bernstein (1896-1968), from Austria-Hungary. He was not related to the celebrated composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein -- but the two men were friends, and even shared a certain physical similarity. Within the world of professional music, they were distinguished from each other by the use of the nicknames "Bernstein West" (Elmer) and "Bernstein East" (Leonard). They pronounced their last names differently -- Elmer pronounced his (BERN-steen), and Leonard's was (BERN-stine).

During his childhood, Bernstein performed professionally as a dancer and an actor, in the latter case playing the part of Caliban in "The Tempest" on Broadway, and he also won several prizes for his painting. He attended Manhattan's progressive Walden School and gravitated toward music at the age of twelve, at which time he was given a scholarship in piano by Henriette Michelson, a Juilliard teacher who guided him throughout his entire career as a pianist. She took him to play some of his improvisations for composer Aaron Copland, who was encouraging and selected Israel Citkowitz as a teacher for the young boy. Bernstein's music has some stylistic similarities to Copland's music, most notably in his Western scores, particularly sections of "Big Jake," in the Gregory Peck film "Amazing Grace and Chuck," and in his spirited score for the 1958 film adaptation of Erskine Caldwell's novel "God's Little Acre."

Throughout his life, Bernstein demonstrated an enthusiasm for an even wider spectrum of the arts than his childhood interests would imply and, in 1959, when he was scoring "The Story on Page One," he considered becoming a novelist and asked the film's screenwriter, Clifford Odets, to give him lessons in writing fiction.