Where has the magic of the movies gone? Are there any composers or filmmakers working today that would be capable of creating anything as beguiling as the love theme from “Spartacus?”
Its creator, musical mage Alex North, was born in Chester, Pennsylvania (just outside of Philadelphia), on this date in 1910. His journey took him from a working-class background, to the Curtis Institute of Music, the Juilliard School, and the Moscow Conservatory. He also studied with Aaron Copland and Ernst Toch.
He became involved with the Federal Theatre Project. He worked in ballet, especially with Martha Graham and Anna Sokolow. He accompanied the latter to Mexico, where he had an opportunity to study with Silvestre Revueltas. Perhaps not coincidentally, his three North American teachers, Copland, Toch, and Revueltas, had all worked in film.
North wrote his first film score as far back as the 1930s, around the time he met up with director Elia Kazan. North was drafted during the war, and put his talent to use writing music for the Office of War Information documentaries.
With the cessation of hostilities, he returned to the theater. He also composed some concert pieces. It was his incidental music for plays such as “A Streetcar Named Desire” that earned him an invitation to Hollywood, where he wrote the score for Kazan’s classic film adaptation. It would be the first time jazz would be fully integrated into the drama, forming the basis for the film’s underscore, as opposed to being simply diegetic, or “source music,” played by a band or on a turntable in the background of a given scene. Its success opened the door to a new film score sensibility, paving the way for composers like Elmer Bernstein, Henry Mancini, and North’s beloved Duke Ellington.
In all, North wrote 50 film scores, racking up 15 Academy Award nominations, yet never taking home the prize. In 1986, he received lifetime achievement recognition from the Academy, the first composer to be so honored.
There were times, during the course of his career, when his music took on an independent life, distinct from the films for which it was written. He scored major hits with “Unchained Melody” (originally written for the film “Unchained” and recorded some 500 times) and the love theme from “Spartacus.” The original soundtrack to “A Streetcar Named Desire” also sold extremely well.
His acclaimed contribution to “Spartacus” didn’t keep the film’s director, Stanley Kubrick, from rejecting North’s score for “2001: A Space Odyssey” – without bothering to tell him. North found out only after the lights went down at the film’s premiere. Director John Huston was more appreciative. Later in his career, North became Huston’s composer of choice, for films like “The Misfits,” “Under the Volcano,” “Prizzi’s Honor,” and “The Dead.”
It’s especially poignant, in 2025, to view North’s acceptance speech for his honorary Oscar. (You’ll find a link to the clip below.) At around the 4:50 mark, he says: “I would like to make a humble plea to all of us involved in the movies, and that is to encourage and convey hope, humor, compassion, and adventure, and love… as opposed to despair, synthetic theatrics, and blatant, bloody violence. And sex, sex, sex, by all means, indeed… but with a bit of mystery, a touch of charm and elegance, and lots of imagination.”
Amen to that. It’s a shame that it’s a plea that’s been almost wholly ignored. We would be in a better place today, psychologically, as morale colors everything, were we not buffeted by an aggressively crass and downbeat popular culture. Had filmmakers only heeded his advice.
Happy birthday, Alex North.
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The Righteous Brothers sing “Unchained Melody”
In the movie “Ghost”
Love theme from “Spartacus”
Cover by Yusef Lateef
“A Streetcar Named Desire”
Rejected score for “2001: A Space Odyssey”
Honorary Academy Award, presented by Quincy Jones, with an intro by Robin Williams
John Williams talks North, reedited to include extended musical examples
