Saul Chaplin

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name = Saul Chaplin
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birthname = Saul Kaplan
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Saul Chaplin (February 19, 1912 – November 15, 1997) was one of Hollywood's preeminent composers and musical directors.

He was born Saul Kaplan in Brooklyn, New York.He had worked on stage, screen and television since the days of Tin Pan Alley. In film, he won four Oscars for collaborating on the scores and orchestrations of "An American in Paris" (1951), "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" (1954) and "West Side Story" (1961).

Following education at New York University's School of Commerce, Chaplin joined the ASCAP and started out penning tunes for the theatre, vaudeville and for New York's famous songwriting district, Tin Pan Alley. While in New York, Chaplin teamed with Sammy Cahn to compose original songs for Vitaphone movie shorts, filmed in Brooklyn by Warner Brothers. During this period the team was sometimes billed only by surname ("Cahn and Chaplin"), in the manner of Rodgers and Hart or Gilbert and Sullivan.

Cahn and Chaplin relocated to Hollywood and scored two films for Universal Pictures. Chaplin then moved to Columbia Pictures to score "Cover Girl" and "The Jolson Story". While on the latter film, Chaplin and Al Jolson penned the million-selling hit tune "The Anniversary Song". In the late 1940s, Chaplin moved to MGM to work on a long string of films including "On the Town" (1949), "Kiss Me, Kate" (1953), "High Society" (1956) and "Merry Andrew" (1958). For collaborating on such hits as "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" and "Please Be Kind", Chaplin was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1985.

While he still continued composing, Chaplin became a movie producer in the early '60s and was behind such major features as "West Side Story" (1961), "Can-Can" (1960), "I Could Go On Singing" (1963), "The Sound of Music" (1965), "STAR!" (1968), "Man of La Mancha" (1972) and "That's Entertainment, Part 2" (1976). He won Academy Awards for "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers", "An American in Paris" and "West Side Story" as well as a nomination for "High Society".

He published his autobiography, "The Golden Age of Movie Musicals and Me" in 1994. Chaplin worked with and was friends with most of the major songwriters and performers of his era, such as Cole Porter, Ira Gershwin, Al Jolson, Leonard Bernstein, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly, Phil Silvers, Julie Andrews, Frank Sinatra and others. His memoir focused on the behind the scenes aspect of moviemaking.

Chaplin was married to Betty Levin, who worked as script supervisor on "The Sound of Music". In late 1997, the 85-year-old Chaplin suffered a bad fall and on November 15 died as a result of his injuries in Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

External links

* [http://www.songwritershalloffame.org/exhibit_home_page.asp?exhibitId=58 Songwriters Hall of Fame page on Saul Chaplin]
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6216012 Saul Chaplin's Gravesite]