Monty Norman

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Monty Norman
Birth name Monty Noserovitch
Born (1928-04-04)4 April 1928
London, England
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Genres Film scores
Occupation(s) Composer
Conductor
Music producer
Instruments <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
  • Keyboards
  • Guitar
Years active 1958–2022

Monty Norman (born Monty Noserovitch; 4 April 1928 – 11 July 2022) was an English film composer and singer best known for composing the "James Bond Theme".

Early life

Norman was born Monty Noserovitch in Stepney in the East End of London, the only child of Annie (née Berlin) and Abraham Noserovitch, on the night before Passover in 1928.[1] His grandparents were Jews.[2] When Norman's father was young, he travelled from Latvia to England with his mother (Norman's grandmother).

As a child during World War II, Norman was evacuated from London but later returned during the Blitz.[1] As a young man he did national service in the RAF, where he became interested in pursuing a career in singing.

Career

In the 1950s and early 1960s, Norman was a singer for big bands such as those of Cyril Stapleton, Stanley Black, Ted Heath, and Nat Temple. He also sang in various variety shows, sharing top billing with other singers and comedy stars such as Benny Hill, Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, Harry Worth, Tommy Cooper, Jimmy James, Tony Hancock, Jimmy Edwards, and Max Miller. One of his songs, "False Hearted Lover", was successful internationally.

From the late 1950s, he moved from singing to composing, including songs for performers such as Cliff Richard, Tommy Steele, Count Basie, and Bob Hope, and lyrics for musicals and (subsequently) films. In 1957 and 1958, he wrote lyrics for the musicals Make Me an Offer, the English-language version of Irma la Douce (based on a 1956 French musical written by Alexandre Breffort and Marguerite Monnot; the English version was nominated for a Broadway Tony Award), and Expresso Bongo (which Time Out called the first rock and roll musical). Expresso Bongo, written by Wolf Mankowitz, was a West End hit and was later made into a 1960 film starring a young Cliff Richard). Norman's later musicals include Songbook (aka The Moony Shapiro Songbook in New York), which was also nominated for a Broadway Tony and won an Ivor Novello Award; and Poppy (1982), which was also nominated for the Ivor Novello Award, and won the SWET award (renamed "the Laurence Olivier Awards" in 1984) for "Best Musical". Norman's further film work included music for the Hammer movie The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll (1960), The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961), the Bob Hope Eon Productions movie Call Me Bwana (1963), and the TV miniseries Dickens of London (1976).

Norman worked for several years on his unpublished autobiography, titled A Walking Stick Full of Bagels.[1]

James Bond Theme

Norman is best known for writing the "James Bond Theme", the signature theme of the James Bond franchise, and the score to the first James Bond film, Dr. No. Norman received royalty payments for the theme from 1962 on. However, as the producers were dissatisfied with Norman's arrangement, John Barry re-arranged the theme.[3] Barry later claimed that it was actually he who wrote the theme, but Norman won two different libel actions for claiming that Barry was the composer, the last against The Sunday Times in 2001.[4][5] In the made-for-DVD documentary Inside Dr. No, Norman performs a music piece that he wrote for an unproduced stage musical based on A House for Mr Biswas several years earlier, entitled "Bad Sign, Good Sign", that he claimed resembles the melody of the "James Bond Theme" in several places.

Norman collected around £485,000 in royalties between 1976 and 1999[6] for the use of the theme since Dr. No.

Personal life

Norman was the first husband of actress Diana Coupland and they had one daughter together.[2] They divorced in 1980 and later he married Rina Caesari.[1][2] He died on 11 July 2022, at the age of 94.[7][8][9]

Musicals

  • Make Me an Offer (1958)
  • Expresso Bongo (1958)
  • Irma La Douce (1958)
  • The Art of Living (revue, 1960)
  • Belle or the Ballad of Dr. Crippen (1961)
  • The Perils of Scobie Prilt (1963)
  • Pinkus (1967)
  • Quick, Quick, Slow (1969)
  • Stand and Deliver (1972)
  • So Who Needs Marriage? (1975)
  • Songbook (1979)
  • Poppy (1982)
  • Pinocchio (1988)

References

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  6. Monty Norman v. The Sunday Times (The "James Bond Theme" Lawsuit)
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External links


Preceded by
None
James Bond film score composer
1962
Succeeded by
John Barry
1963–1971