Born April 16, 1924 in Cleveland, OH

Died June 14, 1994 in California

From the Henry Mancini page on All Music Guide:

If the recognition of one's peers is the true measure of success, then few men are as successful as composer, arranger, and conductor Henry Mancini. In a career that spanned 40 years, writing for film and television, Mancini won four Oscars and twenty Grammys, the all-time record for a pop artist. For 1961's Breakfast at Tiffany's alone, Mancini won five Grammys and two Oscars. Breakfast at Tiffany's includes the classic "Moon River" (lyrics by Johnny Mercer), arguably one of the finest pop songs of the last 50 years. At last count, there were over 1000 recordings of it. His other notable songs include "Dear Heart," "Days of Wine and Roses" (one Oscar, two Grammys), and "Charade," the last two with lyrics by Mercer. He also had a #1 record and won a Grammy for Nino Rota's "Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet." Among his other notable film scores are The Pink Panther (three Grammys), Hatari! (one Grammy), Victor/Victoria (an Oscar), Two for the Road, Wait Until Dark, and 10. His television themes include "Peter Gunn" (two Grammys, recorded by many rock artists), "Mr. Lucky" (two Grammys), "Newhart," "Remington Steele," and "The Thorn Birds" television mini-series.

As a child, Mancini learned how to play a variety of musical instruments and as a teenager, he became enamored with jazz and big bands. He began to write arrangements and sent a few to Benny Goodman, who wrote the teenager back, encouraging him to pursue a career in music. Mancini enrolled in the Julliard School of Music in 1942, but his studies were cut short when he served in the military during World War II. After the war, he was hired by Tex Beneke, the leader of the Glenn Miller orchestra, as the as a pianist and arranger. In the late '40s, he began writing scores for record and film studios, first for a recording session by the Mel-Tones, which featured his wife Ginny O'Connor, and then the Abbot and Costello film Lost in Alaska, the first movie he scored.

Lost in Alaska led to more film scores, in particuar 1954's The Glenn Miller Story and 1956's The Benny Goodman Story, which both showcased his big band roots. Soon, he was working on a large number of films and television, including Orson Welles' Touch of Evil and the TV show Peter Gunn. Mancini's scores frequently straddled the line between jazz and Hollywood dramatics, making his music both distinctive and influential.

Mancini's heyday was the early '60s, when his score for Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) yielded the Oscar-winning hit single "Moon River," which instantly became a pop standard. The following year, he wrote the music for Days of Wine and Roses, which also won an Oscar for its title song. Throughout the next three decades, he continued to be one of the most successful film composers in the world, as well as a popular concert conductor. He continued working until his death in 1994; just prior to his demise, he was writing the score for the musical adaption of Victor/Victoria.

What kept Mancini's work fresh was his ability to write in almost any style imaginable and his successful experimentations with unusual sounds and instruments. In his 1989 memoir Did They Mention the Music?, Mancini's co-author Gene Lees wrote that "More than any other person, he Americanized film scoring, and in time even European film composers followed in his path," and that Mancini wrote scores that "contained almost as many fully developed song melodies as a Broadway musical." Had he not remained true to his first love, film scoring, Mancini would have more than likely made as large an impact on the Broadway stage as he made on the silver screen. -- Kenneth M. Cassidy & Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide

Note: several other biographical sections on Henry Mancini can be found within "The Henry Mancini Songbook", "Sounds and Scores", the booklet that comes packaged with the "Days of Wine and Roses" 3 CD boxed set, as well as the "Did They Mention the Music?" biography.

[Letter from Henry Mancini, sent to the Editor at Meridian Publishing Company]

From an issue of TV Guide published very shortly after Hank's passing in June 1994:

"Tribute: Henry Mancini: TV's Music Man

Call him Hank. Everybody did. He was the composer-performer-arranger-conductor whose melodies graced scores of TV series and specials, from Newhart, The Blue Knight, and Mr. Lucky to The Thorn Birds and the cartoon The Pink Panther. Henry Mancini won more GRAMMYs (20) than most rock stars; his first (for the Peter Gunn TV-series score) came during the very first GRAMMY show in 1959. This gentle giant of his field, who died at 70 on June 14, made his last TV appearance May 27 on 20/20, discussing his cancer. He may be best remembered for "Moon River," the lilting song he wrote with Johnny Mercer. As the lyric says, Mancini was "off to see the world. There's such a lot of world to see.'"--N.H.

A little history: I became a Mancini fan in 1965. One of my older brothers gave me a copy of "The Concert Sound of Henry Mancini" - I was hooked! After I graduated from the University of Colorado, I compiled a couple reference books on pop music and then managed a Peaches Records Store in Denver--they were located in most major cities during the 70's and 80's. During this time, I became friends with the folks at the Denver Sales Office of RCA. I was getting tired of retail work and they needed a sales person - so I took the job. If you think about it, it really wasn't much of a "sales job". If the distributor wanted an Elvis Presley LP or a Mancini LP they only had one place to go, RCA. I spent two years with RCA. I remember answering the phone one day when the receptionist was at lunch and I asked the caller's name - he replied "Henry Mancini" - I didn't know what so say! The Denver office reported to the Los Angeles sales office and I became good friends with their manager, Bill Graham. He knew of my addiction to Henry's music and did me many favors. LPs were autographed and sent to me, the 45 rpm of the "Love Theme from Silver Streak" was sent to me from the Japan office. I couldn't believe they were actually paying me for doing this. Sometime in 1979 (after I left RCA) I wondered what project Henry was working on so I called Los Angeles directory assistance and asked for the phone number for Henry Mancini Enterprises. It was that easy. I called, and Lisa, Henry's administrative assistant, answered. We stayed in bi-monthly contact from 1979 until the day after Thanksgiving 1994 when Ginny closed his office. Lisa was so wonderful, thoughtful may be a better word. She sent me autographed LPs/CDs prior to their release. Whenever Henry was performing with the Denver Symphony she would call me at home and ask how many tickets I wanted. I received a few audio tapes of music that weren't commercially available. Over the years, probably 40 LPs/CDs were autographed. The last autographed CD I received was the score for "Tom & Jerry". I was fortunate enough to meet with Henry on five occasions - twice in his Beverly Hills office. He was just as wonderful in person as his music portrays.

As a young, black music student growing up in the 50's and 60's in Queens, NY, Henry Mancini, through watching "Peter Gunn" and "Mr Lucky" introduced me to the world of jazz. I followed his music and career mainly thru his incredible film scores, "Breakfast At Tiffany's", "Charade", "Arabesque", "Gunn", "Soldier In The Rain", "The Pink Panther", "Hatari", "Experiment In Terror","The Great Race" (which I saw at Radio City Music Hall), "Wait Until Dark", "Days Of Wine And Roses" and others.  To me, RCA Records WAS Henry Mancini.  He left a profound effect on me as a composer and arranger.  I always try to imagine what a certain film would be like with the Henry Mancini stamp.  Although I met him twice, I never got the chance to really know him and I really am saddened when I think about it. There can be many John Williams clones but there will never be anybody like Henry Mancini.  He pioneered the use of jazz on film with melodies and orchestrations that were awesome and subtle at the same time.  I miss him, I really do.

--Onaje Allan Gumbs (pianist, arranger, composer)

* * *

A Memoir from Allan Waterhouse . . .

Dear B.J.

This is Allan Waterhouse.

What follows is a copy of a memoir which I sent to Henry Mancini in 1991.  When I sent it,  I certainly did not imagine that he would be dead within three years.  Driving home from the school where I was teaching on June 14, 1994,  I heard a newsman on the radio say 'Henry Mancini died today at his home in Hollywood.  He was seventy.'  And another chapter of my life closed.   A very important chapter.

Since I wrote this,  I have obtained copies on cd of most of the record albums I mentioned here which were unavailable at the time. 

Mr. Mancini was gracious enough to respond, and his letter to me hangs in the den of our home, one of my prized possessions, and is reprinted below my letter to him.

======================

October 21, 1991


Mr. Henry Mancini


Dear Mr. Mancini,

Way back on September 22, 1958, I was sitting in the living room of my parents' row house in Philadelphia watching our black-and-white Philco TV in anticipation of a new show premeiring on NBC.  I had read earlier in TV Guide that this was a new detective series written, directed, and produced by someone named Blake Edwards, which I thought had to be a typo since I had never heard of Blake used as a first name before.  Perhaps they meant Edward Blake?  Anyway,  this TV Guide article had stated that Blake Edwards had tried to use the title This Gun for Hire but couldn't since some Hollywood studio owned the rights to it,  so one night he sat up in bed and decided, 'What the hell!  We'll call it PETER GUNN.'
I was sixteen.  It sounded like my kind of show.  I settled down to watch.  I didn't know that I was making a memory, or beginning a lifetime interest in one man's music.

Opening scene...It is night.  A limousine travels the curves of a dark country road accompanied by the sound of a walking bass and brushed cymbals and then an ominous flute starts playing.  Suddenly, from out of nowhere, a police car pulls over the limo.  As two cops emerge from their vehicle and approach the limo, the limo driver rolls down his window.  The cops look in, pull out their guns, and shoot the limo driver and the passenger in the back seat.  The driver slumps against the steering wheel, making the limo horn blare.  The two cops holster their guns, walk back to their police car, and drive away.  All the while, the sound of the blaring limo horn continues for what seems like a full minute as the camera stays on the limo and then slowly zooms in on the driver's body slumped against the steering wheel.  Then...     

Cut to: a modern art background with the letters PETER GUNN and a pulsing 'spider's web'-like design accompanied by the sound of wailing brass instruments playing over a driving beat.

This was 1958.  It was startling to see cops, symbols of law and order, behave like this.  Visually and stylistically, this new show was different from anything else on TV.  Creative directing.  Odd camera angles: scenes of a car's headlights at night driving right up to the camera;  characters filmed in the reflection of a mirror.  Things like that.  And the music!  Combining jazz riffs with a detective show was a new and innovative thing to do.  The look and the sound of PETER GUNN created a lasting impression on me.  It was radically different from anything else on TV at that time.  And I had discovered it.
Peter Gunn (played by Craig Stevens)  was a private eye - obviously modeled after Cary Grant's screen persona - who spent his nights at Mother's, a nightclub near the wharf, listening to his girlfriend Edie (played by Lola Albright)  sing sultry songs backed by a small combo. 
Clients came to Mother's to hire Pete to investigate some personal problem. Pete also had a very droll relationship with a police lieutenant named Jacoby (who was played to perfection by Hershel Bernardi.)  Pete went on to solve the case by discovering that the cops were phonies sent by one mob boss to assassinate another mob boss.  But not without some great jazz riffs in the process.

Within a few days, I stopped by our local record store, Gettlin's, on Fifth Street in Philadelphia and asked for the soundtrack music to PETER GUNN. Soundtrack albums weren't as popular an item then, but I had already begun a record collection with the soundtracks from April Love,  The Pride and the Passion,  and Around the World in Eighty Days.  The Peter Gunn album wasn't there, so I ordered it.  A week or so later,  I received a phone call that the album had come in.  It was the best two dollars and fifty-some cents I've ever spent.   
     
I played it over and over.  Especially, side one, cut four, Dreamsville, described by Blake Edwards on the back of the album as a 'love refrain for hipsters.'   I sat at our piano in the living room and picked out the melody by playing along with the record.  Unfortunately, the speed on our Zenith turntable was a little fast, so I learned it in  D flat instead of the key of C.

I didn't realize until years later that I had one of the 8000 original album covers that RCA had printed with the blue-black 'blood-shot-eye' modern art design by Fritz Miller.  RCA had not anticipated the popularity of the album and had to use a 'generic' cover for the second pressing of this million seller.
Who was this Henry Mancini?  This man with the impish grin shown on the back of the album?  This man with the name that I wasn't quite sure how to pronounce? This composer of cool jazz that perfectly matched the action of the TV show?

When I played the record for my mother, who had studied piano at the Columbia College of Music in Philadelphia, she said something about the music being mostly in seventh chords, whatever that meant, and that many of the songs ended with a flatted fifth, whatever that was.  I didn't understand the mechanics of what I was hearing.  I only knew that I liked it.

When I got home from school afternoons,  I usually turned on the TV to watch Dick Clark's American Bandstand.   Preceeding that was a show in which a young couple went around Hollywood interviewing celebreties in their homes.  TV Guide used to list whom they would be visiting, and one day I saw Henry Mancini's name.  I had to stay after school that particular day for some reason, so I asked my mother to watch the show for me.  When I got home,  I asked her if Mancini spoke with an Italian accent, or if he spoke English at all.  She said he spoke like everyone else.  I was disappointed.

Soon, RCA released More Music from PETER GUNN.  I especially liked Walkin' Bass, Joanna, A Quiet Gass, and Blues for Mother's.  There was also a jazzy march called Timothy which had been used on the show in a scene involving a seal - the aquatic mammal.   The album cover came from the logo that they used just before they went to a commercial half-way through the show.

It may be that, at sixteen, I really was at an impressionable age.  At sixteen, sounds seemed louder and more distinct, colors were more intense, the sky brighter, and I was more passionate and more easily impressed.  The visual images of the PETER GUNN show along with its distinctive music had impacted me and left an indelible impression upon me.  It became the standard against which I measured other shows, other soundtracks.  Today, I have too many filters working, and I wonder if, watching the first PETER GUNN episode today, would I be as impressed with it?  All I know for sure is that it made me a life-long fan of Blake Edwards and Henry Mancini.

When my favorite magazine - Mad - finally got around to spoofing the PETER GUNN show, they showed musical notes in the margin of each cartoon panel following Pete around, with him getting more and more disturbed and upset. ('Wet streets. All the time,  wet streets.')   In the last panel, we learn that the regular band has gone on vacation and we see that it is Lawrence Welk now conducting the music, and we can understand why Pete has a headache.
One snowy winter day, my friend Frank Kalisiak and I walked about a mile and a half to our local Sears store to visit their record department.  That's where I saw a new Mancini album called The Mancini Touch.  This album featured a few new Mancini tunes but was mostly arrangements by Mancini of others' songs.  When I got home and listened to it,  I was surprised because it was the first time Mancini had used violins.  I remember sitting in my bedroom looking out of the window at the snow gently falling when Snowfall started playing.  It was peaceful, serene, and dreamy - creating for me an indelible blending of image and sound.  Other favorites were Andre Previn's Like Young  and Mancini's own A Cool Shade of Blue and Mostly for Lovers.  The album cover showing Mancini as a puppeteer manipulating two dancers on strings seemed juvenile.

The next year,  in addition to PETER GUNN,  Blake Edwards directed the TV show Mr. Lucky.  Each show opened with a scene similar to PETER GUNN,  but instead of a small combo,  Mancini used a jazz organ with violins.  The music still perfectly matched the action in the shows.  John Vivyan portrayed Mr. Lucky, another imitation of Cary Grant (who incidentally had played the title role in the 1940's film).  Lucky and his sidekick Andamo (played by Ross Martin) ran a gambling ship (The Fortuna) off the coast, and the plots for the show developed from the array of characters who frequented his floating casino.

Mr. Lucky didn't quite have the newness and inventiveness of PETER GUNN, yet it had some interesting stories.  One of my favorite openings occured in a prison as the warden and some guards go to a prisoner's cell and tell him, 'It's time!' The prisoner objects, shouting things like, 'No!  You can't do this to me!  It's not fair!'  Then we see a door open, and the warden and guards toss the prisoner to the ground and slam the door behind him.  The camera pulls back, and we see people walking by as we realize that he is now sitting on the pavement outside the prison.

The Mr. Lucky album cover had an interesting design: shades of black with a black one-eyed cat, a pair of dice showing 'seven,' and the words Mr Lucky in red letters. 

Soon, RCA released more music from Mr. Lucky called Mr. Lucky Goes Latin.  The jazz organ was still there but this time with a Latin beat. 
When my friend Frank and I took another walk over to the Sears record department,  we found another new Mancini release.  This was one of RCA's concept albums.  It was called The Blues and the Beat.  Side One was all bluesy songs and arrangements, while Side Two contained all up-tempo numbers.  The album was reminiscent of the big band sound of the 40's,  what I considered at the time to be 'old people's music.'  Mancini was recording others' compositions, but the arrangements were uniquely his.

In 1960 when I became an announcer and disk jockey on WQAL-FM in Philadelphia, I often featured these Mancini albums.  I guess I felt as though I had discovered him.  In some small way, I'd like to think that I influenced public opinion.  At least, I exposed my listeners to his songs and arrangements.
In 1961,  I was a sophomore at Temple University and  taking a course in Music History.   Mancini had just released Combo! which featured Johnny Williams - the pianist on the PETER GUNN albums - on a harpsichord with jazz arrangements for a small combo similar to the PETER GUNN sound (and yes,  I found this one at Sears, too.).  The last song on side one was called A Powdered Wig, which sounded like it could have been a Bach tune until it suddenly broke into swinging jazz.  I took the album to class and asked our professor to play it as an example of what a jazz artist could do with the instrument in contrast to the harpsichord music from the Baroque period that we had been studying.  He played it fairly loudly on an impressive sound system.  His comment afterwards was, 'I hope the Dean didn't hear that!'  But the class enjoyed it. 

Soon, another Mancini album was released, but this one was on RCA Camden, a 'cheap' record manufacturer right across the Delaware River from Philadelphia in Camden, NJ.  This was the soundtrack from High Time starring Bing Crosby.  I never saw the film, but I borrowed the album from a friend.  It had an instrumental called Moon Talk which I assume was used in a love scene.  Soon after that, another friend told me that he had heard a song by 'that guy that you like' called Moon River.  I corrected him - that the song was called Moon Talk.  Soon, I too heard Moon River on the radio and felt humbled.  I bought the soundtrack from Breakfast At Tiffany's at Gettlin's the day before Christmas, and I still associate Christmas time when I listen to the album.  I got to see the movie that January at a theater in Cherry Hill, NJ.  Moon River put Henry Mancini's name in most of my friends' vocabularies.
Soon after that,  I saw EXPERIMENT IN TERROR at our local theater.  This soundtrack is one of the best examples of music that is perfectly matched to the action in the film.  The autoharp, violins, and brass choir in the opening sequence as actress Lee Remick drives her convertible across the Golden Gate Bridge still make the hairs on the back of my neck rise.  In the opening minutes, Ross Martin - one of Edwards' favorite actors in one of his finest roles - confronts Remick in her garage to begin his extortion plan.  The terror of this scene is heightened by Martin's asthmatic breathing and Mancini's score. Later, as a character named  Nancy turns out a light switch in her apartment and the room darkens, a piano plays an F sharp and G natural simultaneously.  Eerie. Then there is a scene shot from above as moaning violins underscore Lee Remick's breakdown after Martin, this time disguised as an old woman, confronts her in a ladies' room.  In a restaurant scene, a solo piano played White on White.  The film's finale, a shoot-out at Candlestick Park, had culminating music to end the film.

In 1962, I did something that I had never done before:  I bought some piano music.  I purchased Moon River, The Days of Wine and Roses, and a collection of some of the PETER GUNN  numbers arranged by Lou Singer.  I'm sure this perplexed my mother who had tried but failed to get me interested in the piano.  My parents had a Gabler upright in the living room that had been in the family since 1910.  Since I couldn't read music, it took me weeks to figure out the notes,  and I added my own fingering instead of playing what was written.  Since most of the sheet music was in a different key than the records,  I started to learn how to transpose so that I could play along with them.  And I was still playing most songs a half-step sharp because of that Zenith turntable being off-speed.

I met Susan Elizabeth Read in March, 1963.  After our first date,  we returned to my parents' house and sat in the living room listening to albums and playing the piano.  Dreamsville  became 'our song.'  Mancini had recorded it a second time on the 1963 Our Man in Hollywood album, this time with lyrics written by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans.  I inked in the words over the music for Sue to sing.

For our second date,  I took Sue to see The Days of Wine and Roses at a theater in downtown Philadelphia.  I noticed how Mancini had used the song with lush strings to underline a romantic scene (like the haystack scene) and later scored it to underline the sadness in the film.  The movie ends with a French horn playing the melody interrupted in mid-phrase.  Harrowing!

I guess I felt as though I had discovered Henry Mancini.  His sound was identifiable and unique.   Whenever I visited a record store, I always looked for one of his albums. Gradually over the years, one by one, record stores began having a bin marked 'Mancini.'   Whenever a new film was released, I checked to see if Mancini had done the soundtrack, and if so, I went out of my way to see the film.  Examples:  Mr. Hobb's Vacation with Jimmy Stewart, Bachelor in Paradise with Bob Hope, and Man's Favorite Sport with Rock Hudson.             

Charade or Hatari!   I'm not sure which came next.  African instruments appeared on The Sounds of Hatari!   Baby Elephant Walk is cute.  Charade was nominated for best song in 1963 but lost.  Moon River had won in '61 and Days of Wine and Roses in '62.  I thought perhaps Charade lost simply because it would have been three-in-a-row for Mancini and Hollywood was simply reacting to that fact.

1963 was also the year Mancini released another of my favorite albums, Uniquely Mancini. Once again, he had arranged some standards by the likes of Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, and George Gershwin for big band with some of his own original tunes sprinkled in between.

After I graduated from Temple in June, 1964, Sue and I married that summer. When we talked of starting a family,  we began to pick out names we both liked for our children yet unborn.  We both liked Timothy, but because of its association with Timothy from More Music from PETER GUNN, we decided it might be best not to name our first-born after a seal.

In 1965, I read that Mancini was coming to Philadelphia to perform at the Academy of Music conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra.  Of course, Sue and I attended.  The memory I have of the concert is the beautiful lush arrangement of Charade with Mancini at the piano.  It was as if I were hearing this song for the first time.  On the RCA soundtrack album, it is performed three times; first a jazzy version over the opening credits, then as a ballad sung by a chorus in a romantic scene, and finally on a calliope.  But this piano/orchestra arrangement left me with a hushed silence.  It is a beautiful song.

I never bought the soundtrack for Two For the Road although I did see the film. It is one of my favorite Mancini songs.  The chords seem to flow together. Again, I was fascinated how Mancini used this song as a romantic theme and also later scored it as tight and tense and ominous to underline the tension in the film. 

Around 1965 RCA released another Mancini album, this time with a chorus, called Dear Heart and Other Songs About Love.  My favorite was the theme from Soldier In the Rain.  It is a haunting theme, and Mancini recorded it a second time with Doc Sevrinsen on a later album called Brass on Ivory.  I remember seeing Henry Mancini appear on the Merv Griffin Show where he performed Soldier in the Rain on piano.  I was interested to read in Mancini's autobiography Did They Mention the Music? that he considers Two For the Road and Soldier In the Rain as his favorites among all of his themes.
In 1966, Mark was born, our first.  He doesn't know how close he came to being Timothy.

In 1968,  I was working for WBCB-AM out of Levittown, PA.  Most d.j.'s used a theme song to open their shows.  I chose Mancini's arrangement of Alright, Okay, You Win  from his The Blues and the Beat album.  I put it on tape cartridge and opened and closed each show with it.

The format at WBCB was to play instrumentals going into and coming out of the newscasts, which were every half-hour.  I often used my own Mancini albums from home for this purpose along with other instrumentals from the studio library. One evening at WBCB,   I played the Swing March from the film What Did You Do In the War, Daddy?   I received a phone call from someone who identified himself as the director of the Philadelphia Drum and Bugle Corps wanting to know the name of that march I had just played.  He was all excited and said he wanted to find out the name of the publisher so that he could get the music for the Corps to play.

1969 was a big year for Henry Mancini' s popularity.  His recording of Nino Rota's Theme from Romeo and Juliet became number one around the country.  After that, everyone knew who Henry Mancini was.

In 1969,   I went to WWDB-FM in Philadelphia - 'jazz at ninety-six point five.' The only Mancini album in the studio library was Mancini '67 in which Mancini had arranged some standards for big band like Satin Doll,  Cherokee, and Autumn Nocturne.  

Blake Edwards had recently done a re-make of the PETER GUNN TV show for theaters that he called simply Gunn.  Craig Stevens was still Peter Gunn, and except for the PETER GUNN theme and Dreamsville,  Mancini had written all new music.  I loaned my personal copy of the sountrack from Gunn to program director Sid Mark to preview for air-play.  He never returned it.

In 1969, our daughter Laura was born.  We named her because both Sue and I liked the song composed by David Raksin for the Gene Tierney film Laura.
In 1971, Brian was born, our third.  We simply liked that name.  There was a popular song at the time called Brian's Song, but that did not influence our choosing his name.

Then I lost track and interest in Henry Mancini and his music for a while during the 1970's.  There was a series of Pink Panther movies with Inspector Clouseau played by Peter Sellers.  Blake Edwards had apparently decided that it was easier to make fun of someone trying to be like Cary Grant and failing than it was to try seriously to portray someone like him.

But Blake Edwards also began making movies about the passages of life.  The movie '10' in 1979 is about the mid-life crisis of a forty-two year old man.  I was thirty-seven.  The song  It's Easy To Say, became a favorite.  I learned to play it on piano just like Dudley Moore did in the movie.  The character he portrays finally decides to return to the security of marriage after a disastrous affair with a young emancipated girl played by Bo Derek.  I found the film timely, funny, and uplifting.

That's Life! is '10' twenty years later - the crisis of turning sixty.  Mancini wrote a lovely ballad called Life In a Looking Glass that was sung by Tony Bennett over the closing credits.

I'd seen Mancini's name on many TV show themes over the years:  Newhart, Remington Steel, What's Happening?,  The Moneychangers.  But the next music that really excited me was from the mini-series The Thorn-Birds.  Meggie's Theme is especially beautiful.  It drove me to the piano to learn it.  I picked it up by listening to a recording of it and playing along.  I finally have a turntable with a variable speed control.

More Blake Edwards movies in the 1980's:  S.O.B., Victor/Victoria, The Man Who Loved Women, Sunset, and Mancini was still doing his soundtracks.  Some songs were getting hard to pick up, complex, close chords like Cheryl's Theme from Sunset.  I learned Crazy World from Victor/Victoria by playing along with the James Galway / Henry Mancini recording from the album In the Pink.  That, by the way, is the last record album I ever bought.

Now CD's.  Of course, I searched for and found Peter Gunn and Mr. Lucky re-issued on CD, but I have been unable to find other favorite albums like Combo!, The Mancini Touch, The Blues and the Beat, More Music from Peter Gunn, Uniquely Mancini, and Mancini '67.  Whenever I visit a record store, I still go right to the Easy Listening section and look for a bin marked 'Mancini,' and then check out the 'soundtracks' section.

I have memorized about fifty songs by Mancini that I play privately for my own entertainment and amusement.   Since I still cannot read music, most of these I have learned, not from written notes, but by listening to recordings and experimenting.

Mancini wrote his autobiography in 1989 called Did They Mention the Music?   It wasn't until I read it that I realized that the Johnny T. Williams, identified as the pianist on the Peter Gunn albums and several other early Mancini albums, is the same John Williams who is now the conductor of the Boston Pops and a composer himself of such film music as Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Jaws, Star Wars, Superman, etc.  It was he who played the tinkling piano on Dreamsville that I have imitated so often.

I was forty-eight before I finally mustered the courage to play the piano in public.  In December 1990 at the 'Christmas in the Valley' community celebration in Wyalusing, PA,  I accompanied our daughter Laura on Mancini's song Sometimes. It isn't a Christmas carol, but I thought the words were appropriate at Christmas time.  The lyrics are by Mancini's daughter, Felice:

Sometimes

Sometimes not often enough
We reflect upon the good things
And those thought always center around those we love
And I think about those people
Who mean so very much to me
And for so many years have made me
So very happy
And I count the times I have forgotten to say
Thank you
And just how much I love them    

I played, not from written notes, but by memorizing the arrangement that Richard Carpenter had used  with his sister Karen on vocal on the album Carpenters.  I learned after reading Did They Mention the Music? that when the Carpenters recorded "Sometimes" they had simply used Mancini's arrangement - just piano and voice, which was unusual for the Carpenters who did lots of overdubbing and harmonizing.  Laura sang beautifully, and it went well.

We performed "Sometimes"again on May 5, 1991 at the Dushore, PA Music Club's Spring Musicale where Laura also received the local Federation of Music Clubs' scholarship.  She is attending Mansfield University as a music major - in vocal music.

So - I wrote this memoir in the spring of '91.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe like the words in "Sometimes" suggest, it's simply time to say thank you for all of your music.  And perhaps because I'm going to be fifty my next birthday,  I'm at some awkward stage in life.

Laura suggested that I send a copy of this to you - that you might enjoy reading it.  Just for kicks, I did.  But the only address I had was Holmby Hills, Hollywood, CA which I got from reading Did They Mention the Music?  The post office returned it to me stamped 'address unknown.'  During the summer, I showed this to a friend who gave me the name of Nunzio DiIanni in Pittsburgh as a lead.  He sent me an address on Sunset Boulevard, but the post office returned that one stamped 'moved, not forwardable.'

Then I wrote to Composer's Guild, to ASCAP, and to Gene Lees who co-authored your autobiography.  In October,  I finally heard from Toni Winter,  president of ASCAP,  offering as a one-time courtesy to forward a letter to you.  So here goes.

I know that you appreciate your privacy and wish to be inaccessible to the public, but this is frustrating.  All I wanted to do was to thank you for all of your music which has been such a big part of my life.  Sorry, Hank.  Perhaps you'll never know.

Sincerely,

Allan Waterhouse 

======================

Mancini wrote in reply...

Dean Allan,

Your persistence has finally paid off.  I have received your memoir and have read it.  Sorry it took so long to get to me.  I know it is a little late to tell you this, but I am listed in the Los Angeles phone book.

I read with great interest of how my music has affected your life, especially your mention of 'Sometimes.'  Also,  the program with the Philadelphia Orchestra took me right back to the early days of conducting in public.

Thank you for taking the time to put all of this down on paper.  It took a lot of listening and a lot of writing.  I wish you well.

Warmest Regards,

(signed) Henry Mancini

Henry Mancini Links

Henry Mancini's Official Site

Anthology of Henry Mancini

Mr. Mike's Mancini Site

Sean Baker's Mancini Jingle Page

Domenic Ciccone's "Martinis with Mancini" Page (and radio show)

---

Original site layout and textual content of this site Copyright © 2000-2008, B.J. Major. Interview transcriptions, if present, have not been edited for content. Pictured album photos and CD booklet pages are copyright of their respective record labels and are used here only for information and illustration purposes. Mancini Rehearsal photos belong to Mike Newcomb and are used on this site with permission. This is a private site and is not owned in part or whole by any company or corporation.

 

Here I need to state a few brief words that, unfortunately, have become necessary:

When *not* to contact this webmaster:

--to obtain information on where to buy recordings by this artist (or any such related questions, like is such-and-such title still in print, do you have it to sell, would you make me a copy of yours, etc.);

--to obtain information regarding the purchase of any sheet music involving this artist.

Due to the number of such requests I am receiving, they will no longer receive either a personal or an automated response from me.  Answers to the above questions and more can be obtained by your doing a web search using any of the major search engines.

---

 

Search the world for Henry Mancini discs!

Jazz listings at Amazon.com!

It won't cost you a penny. But each time you start your Amazon or GEMM shopping from the above banners, these sites pay me a small referral fee, which helps pay for maintaining these discographies. There is zero profit involved in these discographies and I do have to pay for monthly web server space and bandwidth allotment. Your support will allow me to concentrate on providing timely and accurate information for fans of these music artists instead of chasing after advertising support. Thank you!

BJBEAR71.COM