Ernest Gold Biography

Fast Facts

• Won a Golden Laurel Award for Top Song for "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" in 1964
• Won a Grammy Award for Best Soundtrack Album for "Exodus" in 1961
• After being forced to flee Austria for the U․S․ with his family in 1938 after the Nazis took over the country, his first symphony was broadcast by NBC only one year later
• Began studying violin and piano at the age of 6 and wrote a full-length opera when he was only 13
• Quote: "My parents felt that being a composer was just a childish dream․ They felt that most composers seemed destined to live and die in poverty, but I felt it was just a question of being discovered․"
• Quote: "(On film scores): "Music can demonstrate inner processes taking place in the characters, elucidate relations between them and - most importantly - throw its weight with or against a character in order to sway the point of equilibrium of a scene․""
• Best known as a composer who wrote the scores for several films, including "Exodus" and "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World․"
• Began writing film scores in 1945, when he moved to Hollywood and signed with Columbia Pictures to score his first film, a melodrama called "Girl of the Limberlost․"
• Scored several films for director Stanley Kramer, including "The Defiant Ones" and "On the Beach․"
• Also wrote popular music, having hit songs with "Private Makes Perfect" and "They Started Something," which was sung by Kate Smith