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William "Bill" Lava | |
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| Background information | |
| Born | William Benjamin Lava (1911-03-18)March 18, 1911 St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S. |
| Died | February 20, 1971(1971-02-20) (aged 59) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Genres | Film score |
| Occupation | Composer |
| Years active | 1936–1971 |
William "Bill" Benjamin Lava (March 18, 1911 – February 20, 1971) was acomposer andarranger who composed and conducted music for feature films as well asWarner Bros.'Looney Tunes andMerrie Melodiesanimated cartoons from 1962 to 1969, replacing the deceasedMilt Franklyn, making him the last composer and arranger in the classic era of Warner Bros. Cartoons.
Lava's music was markedly different from that of Franklyn and previous composerCarl Stalling, with a tendency towardsatonality. A sense of tension is often created in Lava's scores using sequences based on the notes of thediminished seventh chord.
Lava also composed and sang the theme to the TV western seriesCheyenne and composed one episode of the seriesGunsmoke ("Little Girl," April 1, 1961).
Lava was educated at Von Humboldt Grammar School andLane Tech High School in Chicago, then attended Northwestern University where his major was journalism. He studied conducting withAlbert Coates in Los Angeles. Lava also wrote short stories for various magazines and was the editor ofNorthwestern Commerce Magazine and associate editor ofPurple Parrot..[1]
Arriving in Hollywood in 1936, Lava arranged for musical radio programs, then scored a number of serials such asZorro's Fighting Legion and motion pictures, such asThe Painted Stallion;A Boy and His Dog;Embraceable You;Dangerously They Live;The Hidden Hand;I Won't Play;Star in the Night andHitler Lives. He was also responsible for scores for theWarner Bros.'Joe McDoakes short subjects andRepublicserials. Among his compositions during this era wereThe Moonrise Song (It Just Dawned On Me).
During World War II Lava composed music for variousUnited States Department of War documentary films.
Walt Disney Productions hired Lava in the mid-1950s, where he wrote or co-wrote the incidental music forZorro and theSpin and Marty andHardy Boys segments ofThe Mickey Mouse Club. While he was later best known for cartoon music, Lava did not score any cartoons at Disney, though he is credited with the score for 1955's TV segmentThe Story of the Silly Symphony.[2] In 1953, Lava provided the music score for theEd Wood filmGlen or Glenda, although he would not receive onscreen credit.
On his arrival at the Warner Bros.' cartoon studio, Lava's first assignment was theTweety cartoonThe Jet Cage. Franklyn had scored the first two minutes of the cartoon when he died suddenly of a heart attack; though Lava completed the cartoon, Franklyn was credited with the entire score. Franklyn used strings and flutes in his portion, arranged similarly to his earlier cartoons, while Lava's score sounds more mechanical and less orchestrated, with a xylophone at one point. Lava's first credited cartoon isGood Noose, also released in 1962. Although Lava's previous work also sounded mechanical, it was greatly enhanced by the studio orchestra. However, at the time of his arrival, Warner Bros. reduced, and later dismantled, the full-time studio orchestra. Without the music budget that he was accustomed to, Lava was forced to work with a much smaller orchestra to record his scores.
Lava was responsible for many scores, including those heard in elevenRoad Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoons, released from 1965–1966 subcontracted byDePatie-Freleng Enterprises toFormat Films.[3] The budgets for these cartoons, all directed byRudy Larriva and known as the "Larriva Eleven", were even tighter still, so much so that only the first short,Run, Run, Sweet Road Runner had real scored music. The other ten (fromTired and Feathered toClippety Clobbered) used a set of generic musical cues, which did not follow the action closely as scores did in other Warner Brothers productions. However, he did manage to produce proper scores for two out of the three Road Runner/Wile E. shorts produced fully by DePatie-Freleng,The Wild Chase (also featuringSpeedy Gonzales andSylvester) andRushing Roulette.
Overall, as mentioned above, Lava’s first short at Warner Bros. was the 1962Tweety andSylvester shortThe Jet Cage. The first short for which he provided a complete score was theDaffy Duck shortGood Noose, also released in 1962.Good Noose was also the first short for which he was credited; unlike the remaining shorts produced at the original Warner Bros. Cartoons studio, where he was credited as "Bill Lava", he was here credited as "William Lava", which would not happen again until he was once again credited as "William Lava" from 1967 to 1969, for the three shorts produced byFormat Productions (only serving as supervisor onQuacker Tracker) and for the entirety of the shorts produced atWarner Bros.-Seven Arts.
Lava also composed music for 19 of the 124Pink Panther cartoons (USA, 1964, animation), always based onHenry Mancini's original theme, adapting it to closely follow character action. The nineteenth short,Pink, Plunk, Plink was composed instead byWalter Greene, however, Lava scored the following short,Smile Pretty, Say Pink, which was his final new composition for the series. Greene scored the following six shorts, with the music cues from each being recycled for all future cartoons up untilTherapeutic Pink (with the exception ofExtinct Pink, composed by Doug Goodwin, who was known for his music for other DePatie-Freleng shorts series such asThe Ant and the Aardvark andRoland and Rattfink); both Greene and Lava's music cues would be recycled for future cartoons beginning withCongratulations It's Pink. Following this, the remaining shorts would be aired on television as part ofThe All New Pink Panther Show (although they would be rereleased theatrically), where all shorts utilized music cues composed by Steve DePatie (son of series co-producerDavid H. DePatie). Lava also co-authored the music for the movie PT-109, and composed music for The Battle of Britain and the documentary Hitler Lives.[4]
Lava co-wrote the theme (withIrving Taylor) and most of the incidental music for the TV seriesF Troop. Lava also composed the silent-film music for the "bookend" sequences at the beginning and end of the 1961Twilight Zone episode "Once Upon a Time" - performed by pianistRay Turner.
Lava was also employed as Music Supervisor with David Rose in a couple of seasons ofBonanza.
Although Lava's feature film work was not as prolific, he composed the scores to movies such asWall of Noise (1963),Chamber of Horrors (1966),Chubasco (1968),In Enemy Country (1968),Assignment to Kill (1968),The Good Guys and the Bad Guys (1969) andDracula vs. Frankenstein (1971).
Lava was the son of Abraham Lava (1882–1958) and Rose Chernavsky (1886–1938). He married Lenore Goldman on December 31, 1932 in Chicago, Illinois. They had two daughters, Charmaine (1938–2012) and Rochelle Lava (1939–1997).[5]
A staunch anti-communist, Lava became known as an outspoken critic of theCuban Revolution.[citation needed] He spoke in favor of direct military action against theCastro regime,[citation needed] continuing to protest in this manner from 1959 until his death.
