Leo F. Forbstein

Leo Forbstein began as a violin player at the age of 4. While conducting at the Royal Theater in St. Joseph, Mo., he pioneered and introduced the synchronization of the orchestra with the silent action on the movie screen. He moved to Hollywood in the mid 1920s where he directed a symphony orchestra at Grauman's Egyptian Theater. He signed as head of the Warner Brothers music department and director of the Vitaphone Orchestra in 1926. Forbstein was nominated for 3 (three) Academy Awards for Best Score: 1936's Anthony Adverse (1936) and The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), and 1937's The Life of Emile Zola (1937). He took home the Oscar for his work in Anthony Adverse (1936) (which was the first Oscar ever awarded in this category). He was working on the score for the 1948 Academy Awards show when he suffered a heart attack. A radio tribute in his honor aired April 25, 1958, on radio station KFWB. Paying tribute were: Eddie Cantor, Danny Kaye, Doris Day, Al Jolson, Dinah Shore, Johnny Mercer, Frances Langford, Gordon McRae, Rudy Vallee, Max Steiner and an orchestra of 96 pieces. A personal tribute was also delivered by Jack L. Warner.