ASCAP Opus Award
Honoring Robert Wise
ASCAP is proud to present its first Opus Award to Robert Wise in appreciation for recognizing the singular contribution of music to film.
Robert Wise was born in Winchester, Indiana, the son of a meat packer. He was introduced to film in the usual way, avidly taking in hours of dime matinees in his rural hometown. Once winning a season pass to a theater, he spent half the summer watching movies. Since, as a young man, his primary interest was writing, he began studying journalism. But the Depression economy demanded that he leave school to find work. His brother David, who worked in Hollywood at RKO's accounting department, arranged a job for Robert as a messenger in the editing department. He moved ahead quickly. After nine months of inspecting, patching, and carrying film to and from the projection rooms on the RKO lot, Wise was made an assistant sound and music editor.
In 1941, he earned an Academy nomination as editor of
Citizen Kane, the truly remarkable first film by Orson Welles, which is still considered to be one of the greatest motion pictures of all time. The step from editor to director began with
Curse of the Cat People in 1944. A succession of movies in all genres followed, and in 1949 he won the Critics Prize at Cannes for his direction of the classic prize fight film,
The Set Up.
One of the most impressive filmographies continues with such films as
The Day the Earth Stood Still, Executive Suite, Somebody Up There Likes Me, Run Silent Run Deep, Odds Against Tomorrow and
I Want To Live (with a score by a new young composer named Johnny Mandel). Space prohibits listing all of his accomplishments!
In 1961, Bob Wise produced and co-directed (with the great choreographer Jerome Robbins) a stunning musical film,
West Side Story, with its brilliant score by Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. He received two Oscars, one as Best Director and one as Producer for Best Picture.
The art of translating a theater piece to a total cinematic experience is one possessed by very few directors. Bob again proved that he is among the select few with one of the most successful movies of all time, Rodgers and Hammerstein's
The Sound Of Music.
His editor's sense of timing and rhythm is the hallmark of every Robert Wise film, and it makes him a joy for composers and lyricists to work with. His choice of musical collaborators on his films attests to his taste and sensitivity. Among them are: Bernard Hermann, Max Steiner, Miklos Rozsa, Sammy Cahn, David Raksin, Franz Waxman, Johnny Mandel, Leonard Bernstein, Stephen Sondheim, Andre Previn and Rodgers and Hammerstein.
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