Roy Webb

 Roy Webb was born in New York City on October 3, 1888, and while he was a student at Columbia University he composed their fight song, “Roar, Lion, Roar.”  He enlisted in the Navy for WWI, and was attending officers’ school when armistice was signed.  In New York, Webb was a musical director and arranger of musicals, including those of Rodgers and Hart.  He had already worked on many films before he received his first screen credit in 1933. Webb spent almost his entire film career working for RKO, from the early thirties until the mid-fifties, although he often wrote on his piano at his Westwood home.  The composer liked automobiles and golf, and spent some of his summers at Nantucket Island off Cape Cod.  He was a charter member and treasurer of the Screen Composer’s Association and was a co-founder of ASCAP. 

Webb worked on over 300 films, and his music can be heard in a wide range of pictures, including Abe Lincoln in Illinois, The Body Snatcher, Bringing Up Baby, The Curse of the Cat People, Cockeyed Cavaliers, Dick Tracy, The Falcon in San Francisco, Houdini, I Walked With a Zombie, Kitty Foyle, The Last Days of Pompeii, The Locket, Mr. Lucky, Mummy’s Boys, Notorious, Out of the Past, Professional Sweetheart, The Spiral Staircase, The Stranger on the Third Floor, Sylvia Scarlett, Teacher’s Pet, Top Secret Affair, The Window, and Zombies on Broadway.  Webb was nominated for Oscars® for The Enchanted Cottage, The Fallen Sparrow, The Fighting Seabees, I Married a Witch, Joan of Paris, My Favorite Wife, and Quality Street.  Some of his television work was for Wagon Train and 77 Sunset Strip.  He retired in 1958, and died on December 10, 1982 at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, California. 

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