Alex North - biography

“Being an old radical, I like films like Spartacus.  I could relate to the hero.”

“Fear is a problem with film music and films; people want to be conventional, and there’s more commercialism today.  If you are not daring in your art, you’re bankrupt.”

“My best film composing experience was with Elia Kazan.”

“The United States and Turkey are the only two countries that don’t have some kind of subsidy for the Arts.  The whole culture in society has made certain films more acceptable.  I turned down so many films in the ’60s and ’70s.”

“Composers today get a TV script on Friday and have to record on Tuesday.  It’s just dreadful to impose on gifted talent and expect decent music under these conditions.”

“I prefer to write music for family films.  I like people.”

“There are so few directors who are musical who appreciate music.”

“When I decided to go to a country that subsidized music, I went to the Soviet Union for two years.”

“I like what I hear as a resulting combination of these two strands...  something of a combination of familiarity and, for lack of a better word, strangeness.”

“There are scores you have to write objectively without getting involved.”

“Today it’s not culture; it’s box office.”

Alex North composed the score for the following films:
The People of the Cumberland (1937)
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
Death of a Salesman (1951)
The 13th Letter (1951)
Les Miserables (1952)
Pony Soldier (1952)
The Member of the Wedding (1952)
Viva Zapata! (1952)
Desirée (1954)
Go, Man, Go! (1954)
The Racers (1955)
The Rose Tattoo (1955)
The Bad Seed (1956)
The King and Four Queens (1956)
The Rainmaker (1956)
Hot Spell (1958)
Stage Struck (1958)
The Long, Hot Summer (1958)
The Wonderful Country (1959)
Spartacus (1960)
Sanctuary (1961)
The Children’s Hour (1961)
The Misfits (1961)
All Fall Down (1962)
Cleopatra (1963)
Cheyenne Autumn (1964)
The Outrage (1964)
The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
The Devil’s Brigade (1968)
The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968)
A Dream of Kings (1969)
Hard Contract (1969)
Pocket Money (1972)
Journey Into Fear (1975)
Bite the Bullet (1975)
The Passover Plot (1976)
Somebody Killed Her Husband (1978)
Wise Blood (1979)
Carny (1980)
Dragonslayer (1981)
Under the Volcano (1984)
Prizzi’s Honor (1985)
Death of a Salesman (1985)
Good Morning, Vietnam (1987)
The Dead (1987)
Ghost (1990)
Poslední motyl (1991)