Oscar Potoker was a musician and film composer.

Early life

In Russia, Potoker composed chamber works based on Jewish folk music. Potoker immigrated from Russia to Paris, France, where he lived, and then from Cherbourg to the US, March 5, 1924, aboard the Berengaria

SS Imperator

SS Imperator was an ocean liner built for the Hamburg Amerikanische Packetfahrt Actien Gesellschaft launched in 1912. She was the first of a trio of successively larger Hamburg America ships that included and built by the line for transatlantic passenger service...

.

Movies and Teaching

Potoker composed movie scores from 1929–1935, among them Blonde Venus

Blonde Venus

Blonde Venus is a 1932 is a Pre-Code drama film starring Marlene Dietrich and Cary Grant. The movie was produced and directed for Paramount Pictures by Josef von Sternberg with a screenplay by Jules Furthman and S. K. Lauren adapted from a story by Furthman and von Sternberg. The music score was by W...

 with Marlene Dietrich

Marlene Dietrich

Marlene Dietrich was a German-American actress and singer.Dietrich remained popular throughout her long career by continually re-inventing herself, professionally and characteristically. In the Berlin of the 1920s, she acted on the stage and in silent films...

, The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu

The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu

The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu is a 1929 film starring Warner Oland as Dr. Fu Manchu. It was the first Fu Manchu film of the talkie era. It was very loosely based on the novel, The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu by Sax Rohmer.-Synopsis:...

, Trailing the Killer

Trailing the Killer

Trailing the Killer is an American film directed by Herman C. Raymaker and released by Sono Art-World Wide Pictures.The film is also known as Call of the Wilderness and Lobo.- Plot summary :...

, and The Vagabond King (1930 film)

The Vagabond King (1930 film)

The Vagabond King is a 1930 American musical operetta film photographed entirely in two-color Technicolor. The plot of the film was based on the 1925 operetta of the same name, which was based on the 1901 play If I Were King by Justin Huntly McCarthy. The play told the story of a renegade French...

. He also trained piano students in theory and harmony.

Automobile Accident

Potoker was riding in an automobile film composer Josiah Zuro

Josiah Zuro

Josiah Zuro was a pianist, conductor and film composer.-Early life:Josiah Zuro was the son of Louis Zuro, a Russian immigrant who became a producer of opera and Josiah's collaborator, and Leah Zuro...

 was driving, October 18, 1930, when the car overturned on Torrey Pines Road, north of San Diego. Zuro, age 42, died in an ambulance on his way to Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla. Potoker was hospitalized seriously injured but recovered. Zuro and Potoker had both lived in the same building, 8439 Sunset Blvd, Hacienda Arms Apartments

Hacienda Arms Apartments

Hacienda Arms Apartments, also known as Coronet Apartments and Piazza del Sol, is a historic building located on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, California. The four-story, Italian Renaissance Revival sourced Mediterranean Revival style structure was built in 1927 and operated initially as a...

, according to the 1930 US census.

External links