Walter Greene

Walter Greene
Born (1910-01-23)January 23, 1910
Tarkio, Missouri
USA
Died December 23, 1983(1983-12-23) (aged 73)
Victorville, California
USA

Walter Greene (January 23, 1910 – December 23, 1983) was a film and television composer who worked on numerous productions for over 30 years.

Career

His early career consisted of music scores for films such as Jesse James' Women (1954), Teenage Doll (1957), The Brain from Planet Arous (1957), Teenage Monster (1958), War of the Satellites (1958) and Thunder in Carolina (1960). He earned an Academy Award nomination in 1946 for his score to the 1945 film Why Girls Leave Home. Greene also provided the score for the German/Polish 1960 film First Spaceship on Venus.

Greene started his career in music scoring cartoons at the Walter Lantz Studio, first credited in the 1963 Greedy Gabby Gator Woody Woodpecker short. Starting with 1967's Hot Time on Ice Chilly Willy short, Greene would be the sole composer of the Lantz cartoons until the last one, which is 1972's Bye, Bye, Blackboard, in which also would be the final cartoon short with new Greene music (as mentioned below, later Pink entries would reuse his cues).

Around 1966, he started providing musical scores for some Pink Panther animated shorts (as well as those of The Inspector), replacing William Lava. Greene's scores were built around "The Pink Panther Theme" composed by Henry Mancini, creating different variations of the famous theme. Unlike the music scores composed by Bill Lava, which were custom made for a specific entry, his compositions were generic and could be reused more freely. He is first credited is in the 19th Pink Panther theatrical short, Pink, Plunk, Plink, with his final original music in Pink Panic. From Pink Posies on, he never composed music for other shorts, even though his name his mentioned. This is because most of his cues (and some Lava cues as well) were reused frequently. His is last mentioned in the Pink Panther short Therapeutic Pink in 1977 (he didn't compose the music, as his cues were reused).

Putting the context of his short-lived contract with DFE, he indirectly recorded some music for six Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies shorts from 1966 to 1967. Those include A Squeak in the Deep, Feather Finger, Swing Ding Amigo, Sugar and Spies, A Taste of Catnip, and Daffy's Diner, all of these are Daffy\Speedy entries (except Sugar and Spies, which is a Road Runner\Wile E. Coyote entry).

Death

Greene died on December 23, 1983 in Victorville, California.


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