A friend of Hitchcock and an outstanding Hollywood composer: how a Ukrainian became an American legend

Dmitry Temkin has composed soundtracks for 160 films. He has worked with top directors in Hollywood, including Alfred Hitchcock, Frank Capra, John Sturges, John Wayne, Howard Hawks, William Wyler, George Stevens, Fred Zinnman, Robert Siodmak and others. How did a Ukrainian conquer Hollywood and remain a cult musician after many years?

Photo: IStock

Born in Ukraine, the musician made a huge contribution to the development of the genre of world film music. He has been nominated for an Oscar 22 times. Ukrinform, he received four Academy Awards: for the western High Noon (1952) - two; and one each for the films “The High And The Mighty” (1955) and “The Old Man And The Sea” (1959)

On September 21, 1993, the US Postal Service issued a series of American Music Legends stamps honoring six of Hollywood's greatest composers. One of them depicted Dmitry Temkin.

His talented works continue to sound in films to this day. So, Quentin Tarantino in the opening credits of his infamous film "Inglourious Basterds" (2009) used the music of Dmitry Tiomkin, written for John Wayne's film "The Alamo" (1960), writes UA Post.

His famous song Wild Is The Wind, written back in 1957, was performed by Nina Simone, David Bowie and Barbara Streisand.

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In addition to many other prizes and titles, Temkin was twice awarded the French Order of the Legion of Honor (as a chevalier and as an officer), as well as the Spanish Cross of the Knight of the Order of Isabella the Catholic.

Boy from Kremenchug

Dmitry Zinovievich Temkin was born on May 10, 1894 in Kremenchug, Poltava province (now Poltava region) into a Jewish family. His father, Zinovy ​​Ionovich Temkin, worked as a doctor, and his mother, Maria Davydovna Tartakovskaya, taught piano. In 1921, Dmitry's father remarried and settled in Berlin, and three years later he moved to Paris, where he was engaged in political and social activities.

Young Dmitry received his initial education from his mother. Already at the age of thirteen, he became a student of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied piano with Felix Blumenfeld and Isabella Vegerova, and in composition, harmony and counterpoint with the famous Alexander Glazunov.

A few years later, Temkin began to earn his own living. He accompanied the ballerina Tamara Karsavina and the legendary French comedy actor Max Linder during his tour of St. Petersburg.

Temkin earned money by playing the piano, voicing silent tapes in the cinemas of St. Petersburg. The period of his life in St. Petersburg coincided with such political events as the overthrow of the tsar, the October Revolution and the formation of Soviet Russia. After 1917, he was the organizer of the grandiose musical performances of the new time, participated in the musical design of the production of "The Storming of the Winter Palace." In 1920, thousands of performers were involved in a large-scale project, including 500 musicians and 125 ballet dancers.

However, anticipating the sad fate of music in Soviet Russia, Temkin decided to leave for Germany, where his father lived with his second wife (Dmitry at that time was fluent in both German and French).

Germany and France

In Berlin, Tiomkin took lessons from Ferruccio Busoni and his students (Egon Petri and Michael Zadora), was a concert pianist and wrote light popular and classical music: etudes, foxtrots, marches and waltzes. A performance at the Berlin Philharmonic with Liszt's second piano concerto further helped Dmitry's reputation as a pianist. On the advice of his roommate and fellow pianist Michael Cariton, Tiomkin went on tour with him to Paris. They performed as a duo of pianists - it was fashionable at that time.

The Russian singer Fyodor Chaliapin, with whom Tiomkin became friends, told Dmitry a lot about the USA, about how well they pay for vaudeville tours, and about the demand for European musicians to tour. This eventually led to an invitation from another Russian emigrant, Broadway theater magnate Maurice Guest, to take part as a piano duo in a vaudeville tour.

New York

Tiomkin came to New York in 1925. She and Cariton accompanied a ballet company under the direction of Albertine Rasch, an Austrian-born ballerina and choreographer. Subsequently, professional relations turned into personal ones, and in 1927 they got married.

Tiomkin and Kariton parted ways - Dmitry went on a tour of the country with Albertina and her American Ballet. He became the musical director and arranger of a troupe of 30 dancers. The rhythms of ballet later influenced the sensitivity of Tiomkin's music to films, because he imagined the movement of people in a film frame as a dance on stage. That same year he gave a recital at Carnegie Hall.” While Tiomkin continued to give concerts as a solo pianist, Albertina staged ballet shows and expensive musical productions. One of them was George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, in which Tiomkin performed the lead piano role.

In 1928, the newlyweds arrived in the French capital, where Temkin performed at the Paris Opera. The program included Rhapsody and the European premiere of Gershwin's Piano Concerto. Gershwin himself was also present, with whom the Ukrainian became very friendly. Gershwin's parents are Odessans, who at one time also moved to the United States from St. Petersburg.

After returning to the United States, Tiomkin went on a concert tour of the country, performing French Impressionist music interspersed with jazz numbers. This was his last tour, as the Wall Street crash of 1929 took both Tiomkin's and Rush's jobs. Everything was decided by chance: an invitation to take part in the premiere of a Hollywood film inspired the couple to move to California and look for work in the territory of musical sound films, which at that time were just appearing.

Hollywood

Temkin joined Universal in 1931 to create Resurrection on a Russian theme, his first foray into non-musical film. In the fall of 1932, Tiomkin returned to New York to create a Broadway production of Montagu Glass's play, Cost Containment. He took part in many Broadway adventures, wrote the music for the play and the musical, which were never staged.

He returned to California the following year. Paramount's Alice in Wonderland was his first opportunity to write and arrange the score and songs for a major motion picture.

Prior to meeting director Frank Caprou, film score assignments were sporadic. They met at a party, over time, the relationship grew into friendship. The first shared experience was the film Lost Horizon (1937). The music for this film glorified Temkin as a large-scale composer of works for symphony and choir groups (thanks to his constant passion for musical colors, he began to use unusual combinations of instruments, dialogues in films were also dubbed in such a way that the instrumental part corresponded to the range and timbre of the actor's voice).

Tiomkin's score for Lost Horizon was nominated for an Oscar, although the nomination itself concerned the head of the music department.

The Capra-Temkin tandem continued to collaborate on the films “You Can’t Take It with You,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” and “Meet John Doe.” ), “It's a Wonderful Life”.

During World War II, Capra commissioned Tiomkin to compose the music for the training and ideological film series Why We Fight, produced by the US Signal Corps. The result was the score for a dozen documentaries, including The Black Soldier and The Battle of San Pietro.

One day in the summer of 1946, Dmitry Temkin appeared before the clear eyes of the son-in-law of MGM President David Selznick, who was worried about the music for his new film Duel in the Sun. Six previous composers did not suit the picky producer, who needed 11 tunes: Spanish, on the ranch, love, and even ... an orgasm melody:

"Orgasm? Temkin asked. “How do you imagine her?”

“Think of something,” Selznick replied.

Temkin worked for several weeks, assembled an orchestra and played sketches for all 11 themes. Selznick liked it. For another month, Temkin conjured over the final version, adding four dozen drummers and a hundred-voice choir to the orgasm melody. But Selznick couldn't calm down. Once he asked Temkin to whistle him a love theme.

“Okay, okay,” the producer said after listening. "Now let's have an orgasm."

When Tiomkin finished, Selznick bowed his head and said sadly, “No. It's not an orgasm."

Temkin did not give up. The music was intertwined with the deep sighs of cellos and rough jerks of trombones - they created a rhythm that the composer later compared to the sound of “a handsaw furiously biting into a tree.” The last time the orchestra played the tune was in Selznick's studio, where Gregory Peck and Jennifer Jones were burning with passion on the wide screen. The love theme went great, but Selznick asked to repeat the melody of orgasm first once, then twice.

"Throw a stone at me, but the music doesn't fit," David Selznick delivered the final verdict. "She's too beautiful."

“What doesn’t suit you, Mr. Selznick?! Temkin protested. - What do not you like?"

“Yes, I like everything, I like it. But it's not an orgasm,” Selznick replied. - This music does not hammer. I don't fuck like that."

"Mr. Selznick! You fuck as you like, I fuck as I like,” Tiomkin fired up. “But it’s just fucking music.”

The captious Selznick could not resist such a luxurious argument and included a musical composition in the picture.

The popularity of songs created for films at that time grew rapidly. For the next decade, Tiomkin wrote the songs and ballads himself in almost every film he scored, often collaborating with Ned Washington or Paul Francis Webster. The list of songs nominated for an Oscar included: "I Love You" from "Peaceful Way", the leitmotif from "Wild Wind", "Unexpected Ways of Love" from "Young Earth", "Green Leaves of Summer" from "Alamo" , the theme song from Ruthless City and So Little Time from 55 Days in Beijing. His songwriting abilities, combined with his background in film music, created song compositions that graced dramatic films.

The melodious gift is an integral part of the long life of Temkin's legacy. He created music instinctively, which may have helped him achieve success.

Producer Henry Henigson said: "He agreed with everyone, but did what he saw fit."

His long-term friendship with Hitchcock, Capri, Kramer and other prominent directors is proof of his personal and business qualities.

He has composed music for Alfred Hitchcock films such as Shadow of a Doubt, Strangers on a Train, I Confess and If There's a Murder, Call the Phone ". His 20-year collaboration with Howard Hawks resulted in Only Angels Have Wings, Red River, Something, Great Sky, Land of the Pharaohs and Rio Bravo.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, Tiomkin was at the height of his fame, winning four Oscars in six years (1952-1958). His success as a film composer was almost unparalleled. He was nominated for two Oscars (for the film score and song) for "High Noon" (High Noon), he received two statuettes for "High and Mighty" and "The Old Man and the Sea."

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The independent personality of Temkin was reflected in his music and affairs. Unlike his contemporaries, he never held a long-term studio contract, thus remaining the most important independent composer throughout the heyday of the studio system from the 1930s to the 1950s.

To this end, he fought for the participation of black musicians in orchestras (then it was forbidden) and he himself worked closely with many black musicians.

Death of wife and relocation

Temkin's magnificent life in the United States ended in 1967 with the death of his wife, Albertina Rush. As he was returning to his home in Windsor Square-Hancock Park in Los Angeles after a funeral procession, he was attacked and beaten by robbers. Temkin put the house up for sale and returned to Europe.

In 1969, Dmitry Tiomkin, along with Karl Foreman, acted in an unusual role as a producer and helped direct the western Mackenna's Gold, starring Gregory Peck and Omar Sharif.

Tiomkin’s last work in big cinema was the music for Igor Talankin’s biographical drama “Tchaikovsky,” which was staged in 1969 in the USSR, and the main role in the film was played by Innokenty Smoktunovsky. While working on the music for this film, Tiomkin visited his homeland for the first time since 1921 and the last time in his life. In 1971, the film "Tchaikovsky" was nominated for two Oscars - for best music (Dmitry Tiomkin) and for best foreign language film.

In 1972, Dmitry Temkin married a second time - to the Englishwoman Olivia Cynthia Petch. She had residences in London and Paris, where Tiomkin enjoyed playing classical music on the piano. Dimi, as his friends called him, died in London on November 11, 1979 and was buried in the city of Glendale (California) at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.

In his native Kremenchug, Temkin is not forgotten - the competition of young improvisational pianists is named after the outstanding composer. In this city there is a lane named after Dmitry Temkin.

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