Angela Morley (1924 - 2009)
Composer Wrote Score For Watership Down, Fire and Ice, Little Prince
Jan 20, 2009
Angela Morley, the Oscar-nominated composer who wrote scores for films like Watership Down, Fire and Ice and The Little Prince, died January 14th at a Scottsdale, Arizona hospice after a long battle with cancer. She was 84.
She also wrote music for The Goon Show, Hancock's Half Hour, Dallas, Dynasty, Falcon Crest, Hotel, Wonder Woman and many other TV programs.
Angela Morley: Transgendered Film and Television Composer
Morley was born Wally Stott on March 10, 1924 in Leeds, Yorkshire. By the age of 15, he was already playing the alto saxophone professionally and he was in high demand, most other musicians having been conscripted for World War II. By 1944, he was the principal saxophonist with the Oscar Rabin Band and the Geraldo Orchestra, and he also wrote swing, symphonic and choral arrangements for those groups.
After studying with Hungarian composer Matyas Seiber and German conductor Walter Goehr, he became a protegé of Canadian-born composer Robert Farnon and started writing songs such as "Rotten Row" and "A Canadian in Mayfair."
By 1953, Stott began a long and fruitful association with the Philips record label, arranging for and accompanying the company's artists while releasing records under his own name. The best known of his efforts was 1958's London Pride.
He also began writing music for the British comedy show Hancock's Half Hour, and was also the musical director for The Goon Show. In 1962 and 1963, he arranged and conducted the British entries for the Eurovision Song Contest: "Ring-A-Ding Girl" and "Say Wonderful Things," both sung by Ronnie Carroll.
He also worked with Shirley Bassey, Rosemary Clooney, Mel Tormé and Dusty Springfield, and arranged Scott Walker's first 3 LP's.
By 1971, he was already receiving composing credits as Angela Morley when he wrote the music for "It Furthers One To Have Somewhere To Go," an episode of Halas and Batchelor Cartoon Films' series, Condition of Man. He underwent sex reassignment surgery in 1972.
After moving to Los Angeles, Morley orchestrated, arranged, and supervised the music for Lerner and Loewe's final collaboration, 1974's The Little Prince. She received an Oscar nomination for that film as well as for 1976's The Slipper and the Rose.
She replaced Malcolm Williamson as the composer for 1978's Watership Down, and also assisted John Williams in orchestrating the themes for Star Wars, Superman and The Empire Strikes Back.
By 1980, Morley was working on scores for shows like Dallas, Dynasty, Hotel, Falcon Crest, Cagney & Lacey, Emerald Point, Wonder Woman, Island Son, Blue Skies and McClain’s Law. She continued assisting John Williams with scores for E.T., Hook, Home Alone I & II and Schindler’s List. Despite not having many film credits, she managed to orchestrate the music for Ralph Bakshi's 1983 film, Fire and Ice.
She also assisted film composers like Richard Rodney Bennett, John Mandel, Miklos Rosza, David Raksin, Alex North, Bill Conti, William Kraft, André Previn, Sol Kaplan, Pat Williams, David Shire, Lyn Murray, John Morris and Ernest Gold.
She won two Emmys for musical direction, for 1987's Julie Andrews: The Sound of Christmas and 1990's Julie Andrews in Concert.
Fed up with the changing nature of film scoring, and frightened by earthquakes and the Rodney King riots, Morley moved to Scottsdale in 1994. She continued working with Williams, and with violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman, plus writing scores for the Boston Pops.
On December 26th, 2008, she broke her hip in a fall. Immediate surgery fixed the problem, but complications set in.
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