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Milt Franklyn
From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist
Milt Franklyn was born in New York in 1897 as Milton Julius Frumkin. When he was three the family moved to Salt Lake City, where he went to high school and studied for a year at the University of Utah. He was junior tennis champion of Utah for six years. He then studied for two years in Berkeley, and began at the University of Pennsylvania when he was called up for the First World War. Because he played several instruments, he joined a band in San Francisco and played in hotels for a few years. He then led an orchestra of his own of nine men, which played under various names.
Music and breakthrough
In 1936 he joined Warner Bros. Cartoons as arranger for Carl Stalling, and in 1954 he became musical director. He wrote his scores at home, early in the morning. The first cartoon in which he was credited as composer was Bugs and Thugs from 1954, although he himself estimated that by then he was already working on his 599th cartoon for Warner. His music belongs to the Looney Tunes featuring, among others, Bugs Bunny and Tweety. In 1954 he joined ASCAP.
Influence
He died in 1962 of a heart attack while working on the music for a Tweety cartoon, The Jet Cage. He wrote the first two minutes himself, the rest was written by William Lava, his successor as musical director. His music was later also heard in Bugs Bunny on Broadway. Franklyn showed how in a cartoon the music can follow every movement on the screen: a piece of a few minutes in which sound, gag and tempo coincide.
Listening
In School of Rock
The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.
- The Dream Factory: Film Reel 7NL Reader
Mentioned in other articles
- Disney and classic cartoons (Mickey Mousing) Genre
His successor Milt Franklyn adapted music by Wagner for What's Opera, Doc?