Louis Ferdinand Gottschalk (October 7, 1864 – July 15, 1934) was an Americancomposer andconductor born inSt. Louis, Missouri. The son of a Missouri governor, also named Louis, he studied music inStuttgart, Germany, where his father, a judge, was Americanconsul.[1]Louis Moreau Gottschalk was his great-uncle.[citation needed]
He came to attention as conductor of the U.S. premiere ofFranz Lehár'sThe Merry Widow.[2] He was a pioneer of originalfilm music, largely due to his work withindependent filmmakerL. Frank Baum, for whom he composed the musical,The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, to Baum'slibretto, which producerOliver Morosco decided not to bring toBroadway after only modest success in Los Angeles. The show ran in 1913 and closed in early 1914, by which time Baum and Gottschalk were discussing getting involved in the nascent film industry that had been springing up in Hollywood, where both had been living at the time.
Baum, aspresident, with Gottschalk, asvice president,Harry Marston Haldeman assecretary, andClarence R. Rundel astreasurer, foundedThe Oz Film Manufacturing Company in 1914 as an outgrowth of Haldeman'smen's social group,The Uplifters, which met at theLos Angeles Athletic Club. As co-producer, Gottschalk composed the earliest knownfeature length film scores forThe Patchwork Girl of Oz,The Magic Cloak of Oz,His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz, andThe Last Egyptian (all 1914), at a time whencue sheets were the norm. He also wrote several stage musicals with Baum for The Uplifters, includingStagecraft, or, The Adventures of a Strictly Moral Man (1914),High Jinks (1914),The Uplift of Lucifer, or Raising Hell: An Allegorical Squazosh (1915),Blackbird Cottages (1916), andThe Orpheus Road Show: A Paraphrastic Compendium of Mirth (1917).
After the Oz company dissolved, Gottschalk went on to work withD. W. Griffith, arranging cue sheets forBroken Blossoms (1919) and composing a score forOrphans of the Storm (1921). Other major films for which he contributed scores includeThe Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,The Three Musketeers,Little Lord Fauntleroy (all 1921), andRomola (1924). He composed a score forCharles Chaplin'sA Woman of Paris (1923), but Chaplin replaced it with a score of his own when Chaplin re-released the film in 1976.
Gottschalk died of astroke of paralysis at his Los Angeles home on July 16, 1934 at the age of 70.[3]
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