At age eight, Mancini began learning thepiccolo.[8][9] Mancini said that hearing Rudolph G. Kopp's score in the 1935Cecil B. DeMille filmThe Crusades inspired him to pursue film music composition despite his father's wishes for him to become a teacher.[10][11]
At age 12, he began studying piano and orchestral arrangement under Pittsburgh concert pianist and Stanley Theatre (nowBenedum Center) conductor Max Adkins. Not only did Mancini produce arrangements for the Stanley Theatre bands, but he also wrote an arrangement forBenny Goodman, an up-and-coming bandleader introduced to him by Adkins.[5][12] According to Mancini biographer John Caps, the young Mancini "preferred music arranging to any kind of musical performance, but taking apart aChopinmazurka orSchumannsonata in order to play it helped him see...how the puzzle of form, meter, melody, harmony, and counterpoint had been solved by previous composers."[13]
After graduating fromAliquippa High School in 1942, Mancini first attended the Carnegie Institute of Technology (nowCarnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh.[14][15] Later that year, Mancini transferred to theJuilliard School of Music in New York City following a successful audition in which he performed aBeethoven sonata and improvisation on "Night and Day" byCole Porter.[16][5] Because he could only take orchestration and composition courses in his second year, Mancini studied only piano in his first year at Juilliard, in a condition Caps called "aimless and oppressed—a far cry from Adkins's enabling protective environment."[17]
Newly discharged from the military, Mancini entered the music industry. In 1946, he became a pianist and arranger for the newly re-formedGlenn Miller Orchestra, led byTex Beneke. After World War II, Mancini broadened his skills in composition, counterpoint, harmony and orchestration during studies, opening with the composersErnst Krenek andMario Castelnuovo-Tedesco.[18]
Mancini recorded over 90 albums, in styles ranging frombig band to light classical topop. Eight of these albums were certified gold by theRecording Industry Association of America. He had a 20-year contract withRCA Victor, resulting in 60 commercial record albums that made him a household name among artists ofeasy listening music. Mancini's earliest recordings in the 1950s and early 1960s were of the jazz idiom; with the success ofPeter Gunn,Mr. Lucky, andBreakfast at Tiffany's, Mancini shifted to recording primarily his own music in record albums and film soundtracks. (Relatively little of his music was written for recordings compared to the amount that was written for film and television.) Beginning with his 1969 hit arrangement of Nino Rota'sA Time for Us (as his onlyBillboard Hot 100 top 10 entry, the No. 1 hit "Love Theme fromRomeo and Juliet") and its accompanying albumA Warm Shade of Ivory, Mancini began to function more as a piano soloist and easy-listening artist recording music primarily written by other people. In this period, for two of his best-selling albums he was joined by trumpet virtuoso andThe Tonight Show bandleaderDoc Severinsen.
Among Mancini's orchestral scores are (Lifeforce,The Great Mouse Detective,Sunflower,Tom and Jerry: The Movie,Molly Maguires,The Hawaiians), and darker themes (Experiment in Terror,The White Dawn,Wait Until Dark,The Night Visitor).
Mancini was also a concert performer, conducting over fifty engagements per year, resulting in over 600 symphony performances during his lifetime. He conducted nearly all of the leading symphony orchestras of the world, including theLondon Symphony Orchestra, theIsrael Philharmonic, theBoston Pops, theLos Angeles Philharmonic and theRoyal Philharmonic Orchestra. One of his favorites was theMinnesota Orchestra, where he debuted theThorn Birds Suite in June 1983. He appeared in 1966, 1980 and 1984 in command performances for theBritish royal family. He also toured several times with Johnny Mathis and also with Andy Williams, who had both sung many of Mancini's songs; Mathis and Mancini collaborated on the 1986 albumThe Hollywood Musicals. In 1987 he conducted an impromptu charity concert in London in aid ofChildren In Need. The concert includedTchaikovsky's1812 Overture with firework accompaniment over theRiver Thames.
Shortly before his death in 1994, he made a one-off cameo appearance in the first season of the sitcom seriesFrasier, as a call-in patient to Dr. Frasier Crane's radio show. Mancini voiced the character Al, who speaks with a melancholy drawl and hates the sound of his own voice, in the episode "Guess Who's Coming to Breakfast?"[25] Moments after Mancini's cameo ends, Frasier's radio broadcast plays "Moon River".
Mancini also had an uncredited performance as a pianist in the 1967 filmGunn, based on thePeter Gunn television series.
In the 1966 Pink Panther cartoonPink, Plunk, Plink, the panther commandeered an orchestra and proceeded to conduct Mancini's theme for the series. At the end, the shot switched to rare live action, and Mancini was seen alone applauding in the audience. Mancini also made a brief appearance in the title sequence of 1993'sSon of the Pink Panther, allowing the panther to conductBobby McFerrin in performing the film's theme tune.
In 1969 at the41st Academy Awards ceremony, Mancini played theharpsichord in a special number.Marni Nixon sang the rules for nomination in the category of Best Score of a Musical Motion Picture (Original or Adaptation), and together they sang the names of the films and musicians nominated. Mancini was the music director of the 41st Academy Awards broadcast.[26][27][28]
Mancini married singer Virginia "Ginny" O'Connor in 1947, who died on October 25, 2021, at age 97.[29] They had three children, Christopher,Monica, and Felice.
Mancini died ofpancreatic cancer in Los Angeles on June 14, 1994.[11] He was working at the time on the Broadway stage version ofVictor/Victoria, which he never saw on stage.[30][31]
Henry Mancini created a scholarship at UCLA and some of his library and works are archived in the music library at UCLA, with additional materials preserved at the Library of Congress.[29][32][33]
In 1996, the Henry Mancini Institute, an academy for young music professionals, was founded byJack Elliott in Mancini's honor, and was later under the direction of composer-conductorPatrick Williams. By the mid-2000s, however, the institute could not sustain itself and closed its doors on December 30, 2006.[34] TheAmerican Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Foundation "Henry Mancini Music Scholarship" has been awarded annually since 2001.
In 2005, the Henry Mancini Arts Academy was opened as a division of the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center. The center is located in Midland, Pennsylvania, minutes away from Mancini's hometown of Aliquippa. The Henry Mancini Arts Academy is an evening-and-weekend performing arts program for children from pre-K to grade 12, with some classes also available for adults. The program includes dance, voice, musical theater, and instrumental lessons.
In 2017, the Municipality ofScanno dedicated a street to Mancini, called "Via Henry Mancini".
Mancini was nominated for 72 Grammy Awards and won 20.[35] He was nominated for 18 Academy Awards and won four.[36] He also won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for two Emmy Awards.
On April 13, 2004, the United States Postal Service honored Mancini with a thirty-seven cent commemorative stamp. Painted by artistVictor Stabin, the stamp shows Mancini conducting in front of a list of some of his film and television themes.[40]
Most of Mancini's scores were not released on LP soundtrack albums. His TV movie music albums were not soundtrack albums but are titled "Music from ..." or "Music from the Motion Picture ..." He routinely retained the rights to his music. Mancini's contracts allowed him to release his own albums for which he rearranged the score music into arrangements more appropriate for listening outside of the context of the film/theater. Actual film scores using players from Hollywood unions recording under major motion picture studio contracts were expensive to release on LP (ex: the soundtrack forOur Man Flint (not a Mancini score) cost $1 more than other LP albums of the day). Many soundtrack albums used to claim "Original Soundtrack" or words to that effect, but were not necessarily the actual soundtrack recordings. These albums were usually recorded with a smaller orchestra than that used for the actual scoring (ex: Dimitri Tiomkin's score toThe Alamo). However, many Hollywood musicians were featured on Mancini's albums recorded in RCA's Hollywood recording studios and faux "Original Soundtrack" albums. Eventually some of his scores and faux "Original Soundtrack" scores by numerous composers were released in limited edition CDs.
