Alexander Laszlo(1895-1970)
- Composer
- Music Department
- Actor
Composer, pianist, conductor, producer and inventor educated at the
Budapest Academy and a private music student of A. Szeny, A Kovacs, and
V. Herzfeld. He was a piano soloist with the Bluthner Orchestra in
Berlin in 1915, and gave piano recitals in Europe from 1921 to 1923. He
invented the Colorlight device, a mechanism that reproduces music with
color, which was first used at the Kiel Music Festival in 1924. Between
1925 and 1926 he gave recitals in opera houses throughout Germany, and
the following year he became the music director at the Munich Cinema
Art Studios, remaining until 1933. He was also a professor of film
music at the German Stage and Film Academy, the head of the music
department at the Hungarian Film Office, and the executive producer of
documentary film for the Hungarian government from 1933 to 1938, at
which point he came to the United States and became a music professor
at the Institute of Design in Chicago, Illinois. He joined ASCAP in
1942 and became an American citizen in 1944, the same year he came to
Hollywood to score films and become music director at NBC
Radio.