Monty Norman
Encyclopedia
Monty Norman is a singer and film
composer
best known for being credited with composing the "James Bond Theme
".
in the East End of London
, the only child of Jewish parents, Annie (née Berlin) and Abraham Noserovitch, on the second night of Passover
in 1928. When Norman's father was young, he travelled from Latvia
to England
with his mother (Norman's grandmother).
As a child during World War II
, Norman was evacuated from London but later returned during the Blitz
. As a young man he did national service
in the RAF
, where he became interested in pursuing a career in singing.
In the 1950s and early 1960s, Norman was a singer for big band
s such as those of Cyril Stapleton
, Stanley Black
, Ted Heath
, and Nat Temple
. He also sang in various variety show
s, sharing the top of the bill with other singers and comedy stars such as Benny Hill
, Harry Secombe
, Peter Sellers
, Spike Milligan
, Harry Worth
, Tommy Cooper
, Jimmy James
, Tony Hancock
, Jimmy Edwards
, and Max Miller. One of his songs, "False Hearted Lover", was successful internationally.
From the late 1950s, he moved from singing to composing, including songs for performers such as Cliff Richard
, Tommy Steele
, Count Basie
and Bob Hope
, and lyrics
for musicals and (subsequently) films. In 1957 and 1958, he wrote lyrics for the musicals Make Me an Offer, the English language version of Irma La Douce
(based on a 1956 French
musical written by Alexandre Breffort and Marguerite Monnot
; the English version was nominated for a Broadway
Tony Award
), and Expresso Bongo
(which Time Out called the first rock and roll
musical). Expresso Bongo, written by Wolf Mankowitz
was a West End
hit, and was later made into a 1960 film starring a young Cliff Richard
). Later musicals include Songbook
(aka The Moony Shapiro Songbook in New York), which was also nominated for a Broadway Tony and won an Ivor Novello Award; and Poppy
(1982), which was also nominated for the Ivor Novello Award, and won the SWET award (renamed the Laurence Olivier Awards
in 1984) for Best Musical. Further film work included the theme songs for the science fiction movie, The Day the Earth Caught Fire
, The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll
, and the 1963 Bob Hope
movie, Call Me Bwana
.
Norman is famous for writing the music to the first James Bond movie Dr. No
, and has been credited with writing the "James Bond Theme
", the signature theme
of the James Bond
franchise. Norman has received royalties
since 1962 for the theme, but it was arranged by John Barry
after the producers were dissatisfied with Norman's arrangement. Barry claimed that he actually did write the theme; nevertheless, Norman won two libel actions against publishers for claiming that Barry was the composer, most recently against The Sunday Times
in 2001.
In the made-for-DVD documentary Inside Dr. No, Norman performs a piece of music he wrote for the stage several years earlier entitled Bad Sign, Good Sign, that resembles the melody of the "James Bond Theme" in several places.
Norman admits to having collected around £485,000 in royalties between the years 1976 and 1999 for the use of the theme since Dr. No.
As of 2004, Norman is working on an autobiography
, to be entitled A Walking Stick Full of Bagels, and musical versions of the 1954 Kingsley Amis
novel, Lucky Jim
, and his 1970s musical, Quick Quick Slow.
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
best known for being credited with composing the "James Bond Theme
James Bond Theme
The "James Bond Theme" is the main signature theme of the James Bond films and has featured in every Eon Productions Bond film since Dr. No. The piece has been used as an accompanying fanfare to the gun barrel sequence in almost every James Bond film....
".
Biography
Norman was born Monty Noserovitch in StepneyStepney
Stepney is a district of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in London's East End that grew out of a medieval village around St Dunstan's church and the 15th century ribbon development of Mile End Road...
in the East End of London
East End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
, the only child of Jewish parents, Annie (née Berlin) and Abraham Noserovitch, on the second night of Passover
Passover
Passover is a Jewish holiday and festival. It commemorates the story of the Exodus, in which the ancient Israelites were freed from slavery in Egypt...
in 1928. When Norman's father was young, he travelled from Latvia
Latvia
Latvia , officially the Republic of Latvia , is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia , to the south by Lithuania , to the east by the Russian Federation , to the southeast by Belarus and shares maritime borders to the west with Sweden...
to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
with his mother (Norman's grandmother).
As a child during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Norman was evacuated from London but later returned during the Blitz
The Blitz
The Blitz was the sustained strategic bombing of Britain by Nazi Germany between 7 September 1940 and 10 May 1941, during the Second World War. The city of London was bombed by the Luftwaffe for 76 consecutive nights and many towns and cities across the country followed...
. As a young man he did national service
National service
National service is a common name for mandatory government service programmes . The term became common British usage during and for some years following the Second World War. Many young people spent one or more years in such programmes...
in the RAF
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
, where he became interested in pursuing a career in singing.
In the 1950s and early 1960s, Norman was a singer for big band
Big band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
s such as those of Cyril Stapleton
Cyril Stapleton
Cyril Stapleton was an English violinist and jazz bandleader.Born in Mapperley, Nottingham, Stapleton began playing violin at age 7, and played on local radio at the age of 12. He performed on the BBC Radio often in his teenage years, and played in film orchestras accompanying silent films...
, Stanley Black
Stanley Black
Stanley Black OBE was an English Bandleader, Composer, conductor, arranger and pianist. He wrote and arranged many film scores and recorded prolifically for the Decca label...
, Ted Heath
Ted Heath (bandleader)
Ted Heath, musician and big band leader, led Britain's greatest post-war big band recording more than 100 albums and selling over 20 million records...
, and Nat Temple
Nat Temple
Nat Temple was an English big band leader, and a clarinet and saxophone player.Amongst many others, he worked with Syd Roy, Harry Roy, Geraldo, Ambrose, Joe Daniels, and Lew Stone.-Career:...
. He also sang in various variety show
Variety show
A variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is an entertainment made up of a variety of acts, especially musical performances and sketch comedy, and normally introduced by a compère or host. Other types of acts include magic, animal and circus acts, acrobatics, juggling...
s, sharing the top of the bill with other singers and comedy stars such as Benny Hill
Benny Hill
Benny Hill was an English comedian and actor, notable for his long-running television programme The Benny Hill Show.-Early life:...
, Harry Secombe
Harry Secombe
Sir Harry Donald Secombe CBE was a Welsh entertainer with a talent for comedy and a noted fine tenor singing voice. He is best known for playing Neddie Seagoon, the central character in the BBC radio comedy series The Goon Show...
, Peter Sellers
Peter Sellers
Richard Henry Sellers, CBE , known as Peter Sellers, was a British comedian and actor. Perhaps best known as Chief Inspector Clouseau in The Pink Panther film series, he is also notable for playing three different characters in Dr...
, Spike Milligan
Spike Milligan
Terence Alan Patrick Seán "Spike" Milligan Hon. KBE was a comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright, soldier and actor. His early life was spent in India, where he was born, but the majority of his working life was spent in the United Kingdom. He became an Irish citizen in 1962 after the...
, Harry Worth
Harry Worth
Harry Worth was an English comedy actor and comedian...
, Tommy Cooper
Tommy Cooper
Thomas Frederick "Tommy" Cooper was a very popular British prop comedian and magician from Caerphilly, Wales.Cooper was a member of The Magic Circle, and respected by traditional magicians...
, Jimmy James
Jimmy James (comedian)
Jimmy James was a music hall, film, radio and television comedian and comedy actor.Jimmy had limited use for jokes as such, preferring to say things in a humorous manner, sometimes in surreal situations and as such was seen by some as well ahead of his time.He was often hailed as a 'comedian's...
, Tony Hancock
Tony Hancock
Anthony John "Tony" Hancock was an English actor and comedian.-Early life and career:Hancock was born in Southam Road, Hall Green, Birmingham, England, but from the age of three was brought up in Bournemouth, where his father, John Hancock, who ran the Railway Hotel in...
, Jimmy Edwards
Jimmy Edwards
Jimmy Edwards DFC was an English comedic script writer and comedy actor on both radio and television, best known as Pa Glum in Take It From Here and as the headmaster 'Professor' James Edwards in Whack-O!-Biography:...
, and Max Miller. One of his songs, "False Hearted Lover", was successful internationally.
From the late 1950s, he moved from singing to composing, including songs for performers such as Cliff Richard
Cliff Richard
Sir Cliff Richard, OBE is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor, and philanthropist who has sold over an estimated 250 million records worldwide....
, Tommy Steele
Tommy Steele
Tommy Steele OBE , is an English entertainer. Steele is widely regarded as Britain's first teen idol and rock and roll star.-Singer:...
, Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
and Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
, and lyrics
Lyrics
Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...
for musicals and (subsequently) films. In 1957 and 1958, he wrote lyrics for the musicals Make Me an Offer, the English language version of Irma La Douce
Irma la Douce
Irma la Douce/Irma la Dolce is a 1963 romantic comedy starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine, directed by Billy Wilder.It is based on the 1956 French musical Irma La Douce by Marguerite Monnot and Alexandre Breffort.-Plot:...
(based on a 1956 French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
musical written by Alexandre Breffort and Marguerite Monnot
Marguerite Monnot
Marguerite Monnot was a French songwriter and composer best known for having written many of the songs performed by Édith Piaf and for the music in the stage musical Irma La Douce....
; the English version was nominated for a Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
Tony Award
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
), and Expresso Bongo
Expresso Bongo
Expresso Bongo, a 1958 West End musical and a 1959 film, was a satire of the music industry. It was first produced on the stage at the Saville Theatre, London on 23 April 1958. Its book was written by Wolf Mankowitz and Julian More, with music by David Heneker and Monty Norman, also the...
(which Time Out called the first rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
musical). Expresso Bongo, written by Wolf Mankowitz
Wolf Mankowitz
Cyril Wolf Mankowitz was an English writer, playwright and screenwriter of Russian Jewish descent.-Early life:...
was a West End
West End theatre
West End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
hit, and was later made into a 1960 film starring a young Cliff Richard
Cliff Richard
Sir Cliff Richard, OBE is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor, and philanthropist who has sold over an estimated 250 million records worldwide....
). Later musicals include Songbook
Songbook (musical)
Songbook is a musical with music by Monty Norman and book by Monty Norman and Julian More. It premiered at the Globe Theatre, in London on July 25, 1979, and ran for 208 performances.Directed by Jonathan Lynn with musical staging by Gillian Lynne it won the Olivier Award for the Best New Musical...
(aka The Moony Shapiro Songbook in New York), which was also nominated for a Broadway Tony and won an Ivor Novello Award; and Poppy
Poppy (musical)
Poppy is a musical comedy play about the Opium Wars. The play takes the form of a pantomime, complete with Dick Whittington , a pantomime dame, and two pantomime horses. The book and lyrics were written by Peter Nichols; the composer was Monty Norman.-Plot:The year is 1840...
(1982), which was also nominated for the Ivor Novello Award, and won the SWET award (renamed the Laurence Olivier Awards
Laurence Olivier Awards
The Laurence Olivier Award is presented annually by the Society of London Theatre to recognise excellence in professional theatre. Named after the renowned British actor Laurence Olivier, they are given for West End shows and other productions staged in London...
in 1984) for Best Musical. Further film work included the theme songs for the science fiction movie, The Day the Earth Caught Fire
The Day the Earth Caught Fire
The Day the Earth Caught Fire is a British science fiction disaster film starring Edward Judd, Leo McKern and Janet Munro. It was directed by Val Guest and released in 1961....
, The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll
The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll
The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll is a 1960 horror film by Hammer Film Productions. It was directed by Terence Fisher, and stars Paul Massie as Dr. Jekyll, and co-stars Dawn Addams, Christopher Lee and David Kossoff. It was written by Wolf Mankowitz, based on the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr...
, and the 1963 Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
movie, Call Me Bwana
Call Me Bwana
Call Me Bwana is a 1963 farce film starring Bob Hope and Anita Ekberg, and directed by Gordon Douglas. It is largely set in Africa. It is the only film made by EON Productions which is not about the Ian Fleming spy character, James Bond and was made by most of the same film crew as Dr...
.
Norman is famous for writing the music to the first James Bond movie Dr. No
Dr. No (film)
Dr. No is a 1962 spy film, starring Sean Connery; it is the first James Bond film. Based on the 1958 Ian Fleming novel of the same name, it was adapted by Richard Maibaum, Johanna Harwood, and Berkely Mather and was directed by Terence Young. The film was produced by Harry Saltzman and Albert R...
, and has been credited with writing the "James Bond Theme
James Bond Theme
The "James Bond Theme" is the main signature theme of the James Bond films and has featured in every Eon Productions Bond film since Dr. No. The piece has been used as an accompanying fanfare to the gun barrel sequence in almost every James Bond film....
", the signature theme
Theme music
Theme music is a piece that is often written specifically for a radio program, television program, video game or movie, and usually played during the title sequence and/or end credits...
of the James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
franchise. Norman has received royalties
Royalties
Royalties are usage-based payments made by one party to another for the right to ongoing use of an asset, sometimes an intellectual property...
since 1962 for the theme, but it was arranged by John Barry
John Barry (composer)
John Barry Prendergast, OBE was an English conductor and composer of film music. He is best known for composing the soundtracks for 12 of the James Bond films between 1962 and 1987...
after the producers were dissatisfied with Norman's arrangement. Barry claimed that he actually did write the theme; nevertheless, Norman won two libel actions against publishers for claiming that Barry was the composer, most recently against The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (UK)
The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
in 2001.
In the made-for-DVD documentary Inside Dr. No, Norman performs a piece of music he wrote for the stage several years earlier entitled Bad Sign, Good Sign, that resembles the melody of the "James Bond Theme" in several places.
Norman admits to having collected around £485,000 in royalties between the years 1976 and 1999 for the use of the theme since Dr. No.
As of 2004, Norman is working on an autobiography
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
, to be entitled A Walking Stick Full of Bagels, and musical versions of the 1954 Kingsley Amis
Kingsley Amis
Sir Kingsley William Amis, CBE was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, various short stories, radio and television scripts, along with works of social and literary criticism...
novel, Lucky Jim
Lucky Jim
Lucky Jim is an academic satire written by Kingsley Amis, first published in 1954 by Victor Gollancz. It was Amis's first novel, and won the Somerset Maugham Award for fiction...
, and his 1970s musical, Quick Quick Slow.
External links
- Norman at Musical Theatre http://www.musical-theatre.net/html/composers/montynorman.html
- Norman's web site http://www.montynorman.com/cv/default.asp