Ted Royal [Dewar] was an American orchestrator, conductor

Conducting

Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

 and 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...

 for Broadway theatre

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...

. He was most active in the 1940s and 50s, being associated with the very successful original productions of Lerner and Loewe

Lerner and Loewe

Lerner and Loewe are the duo of lyricist and librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe, known primarily for the music and lyrics of some of Broadway's most successful musical shows, including My Fair Lady, Camelot, and Brigadoon....

's Brigadoon and Paint Your Wagon. Together with George Bassman

George Bassman

George Bassman was an American composer and arranger.-Biography:Born in New York to a Russian Jewish émigré couple, Bassman was later raised in Boston and began studying music at the Boston Conservatory while still a boy....

 he orchestrated Frank Loesser

Frank Loesser

Frank Henry Loesser was an American songwriter who wrote the lyrics and scores to the Broadway hits Guys and Dolls and How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, among others. He won separate Tony Awards for the music and lyrics in both shows, as well as sharing the Pulitzer Prize for...

's Guys and Dolls. The dean of musical orchestrators, Robert Russell Bennett

Robert Russell Bennett

Robert Russell Bennett was an American composer and arranger, best known for his orchestration of many well-known Broadway and Hollywood musicals by other composers such as Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, and Richard Rodgers. In 1957 and 2008, Bennett received Tony Awards...

, remembered Royal as "one of Broadway's very special arrangers."

Big band days

Royal was adopted and may have also been known in New York under the name of Ted Klinefelter. He majored in music at the University of Kansas

University of Kansas

The University of Kansas is a public research university and the largest university in the state of Kansas. KU campuses are located in Lawrence, Wichita, Overland Park, and Kansas City, Kansas with the main campus being located in Lawrence on Mount Oread, the highest point in Lawrence. The...

 and completed further studies in Houston and New York, including a correspondence course in the mathematical musical progressions

Schillinger System

The Schillinger System of Musical Composition, named after Joseph Schillinger, is a method of musical composition based on mathematical processes...

 advanced by the influential theorist Joseph Schillinger

Joseph Schillinger

Joseph Schillinger was a composer, music theorist, and composition teacher. He was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine and died in New York City.-Life and career:...

, who had also taught George Gershwin

George Gershwin

George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...

.

After floating around as a sideman in various minstrel

Minstrel

A minstrel was a medieval European bard who performed songs whose lyrics told stories of distant places or of existing or imaginary historical events. Although minstrels created their own tales, often they would memorize and embellish the works of others. Frequently they were retained by royalty...

 shows, Royal settled down as alto sax in the Ted Weems

Ted Weems

Wilfred Theodore Weems was an American bandleader and musician. Weems' work in music was recognized with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.- Biography :...

 orchestra. He began writing big-band charts for Weems as well as Tommy Dorsey

Tommy Dorsey

Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...

, Paul Whiteman

Paul Whiteman

Paul Samuel Whiteman was an American bandleader and orchestral director.Leader of the most popular dance bands in the United States during the 1920s, Whiteman's recordings were immensely successful, and press notices often referred to him as the "King of Jazz"...

 and Harry James

Harry James

Henry Haag “Harry” James was a trumpeter who led a jazz swing band during the Big Band Era of the 1930s and 1940s. He was especially known among musicians for his astonishing technical proficiency as well as his superior tone.-Biography:He was born in Albany, Georgia, the son of a bandleader of a...

. By 1935 Royal was hosting his own radio show in New York and fronted an orchestra which often played on Long Island

Long Island

Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...

. However, he may have run into unemployment and financial troubles in the economic downturn of 1937.

Broadway career

In 1938 he started arranging music for theater in Fort Worth, Texas. Returning to New York to work on Billy Rose's Aquacade

Billy Rose's Aquacade

Billy Rose's Aquacade was a music, dance and swimming show produced by Billy Rose at the Great Lakes Exposition in 1937.Later Aquacade moved to the 1939 New York World's Fair where it was the most successful production of the fair . The Art Deco 11,000 seat amphitheatre was designed by architects...

for the World's Fair

1939 New York World's Fair

The 1939–40 New York World's Fair, which covered the of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park , was the second largest American world's fair of all time, exceeded only by St. Louis's Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904. Many countries around the world participated in it, and over 44 million people...

, he came to the attention of Max Dreyfus who ran the in-demand theater orchestration department at Chappell Music. In just two weeks his hard-working team could orchestrate the average musicomedy for the price of $6,000. Dreyfus signed Royal as a house orchestrator and in 1939 he moved into the same building with Robert Russell Bennett

Robert Russell Bennett

Robert Russell Bennett was an American composer and arranger, best known for his orchestration of many well-known Broadway and Hollywood musicals by other composers such as Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, and Richard Rodgers. In 1957 and 2008, Bennett received Tony Awards...

, Don Walker

Don Walker

Don Walker may refer to:*Don Walker , Australian musician*Don Walker , American orchestrator*Don Walker...

 and Hans Spialek

Hans Spialek

Hans Spialek was an Austrian-born American composer and orchestrator. Raised in Vienna and given an early musical education, he continued his studies in Moscow, at first as a prisoner of war during World War I, before settling in the US in 1924.Spialek is best known for scoring the music for...

.

His legitimate Broadway start was assisting Spialek and Walker with the orchestration duties for the George White

George White

George White may refer to:*George A. White Maj.-Gen., U.S. Army*George E. White , U.S. Congressman from Illinois*George Henry White , Republican Congressman from North Carolina...

 Scandals of 1939, featuring Ella Logan

Ella Logan

Ella Logan was a Scottish-born actress and singer, who appeared on Broadway, recorded and had a nightclub career in the United States and internationally.-Early years:...

, Ann Miller

Ann Miller

Johnnie Lucille Collier, better known as Ann Miller was an American singer, dancer and actress.-Early life:...

 and The Three Stooges. Quickly followed high profile collaborations with Russell Bennett on Buddy DeSylva's DuBarry Was a Lady

DuBarry Was a Lady

DuBarry Was a Lady is a Broadway musical, with music and lyrics by Cole Porter, and the book by Herbert Fields and B.G. DeSylva. The musical starred Bert Lahr, Ethel Merman and Betty Grable, and the song "Friendship" was one of the highlights...

and Mike Todd

Mike Todd

Michael Todd was an American theatre and film producer, best known for his 1956 production of Around the World in Eighty Days, which won an Academy Award for Best Picture...

's Mexican Hayride

Mexican Hayride

Mexican Hayride is a 1948 film starring the comedy team of Abbott and Costello. The film is based on Cole Porter's Broadway musical Mexican Hayride starring Bobby Clark...

. He was also a valued "hot jazz" and swing exponent for the team of orchestrators who worked on Annie Get Your Gun

Annie Get Your Gun (musical)

Annie Get Your Gun is a musical with lyrics and music written by Irving Berlin and a book by Herbert Fields and his sister Dorothy Fields. The story is a fictionalized version of the life of Annie Oakley , who was a sharpshooter from Ohio, and her husband, Frank Butler.The 1946 Broadway production...

and Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

's breakthrough On the Town. Steven Suskin has confirmed that Royal was responsible for arranging the show-stopping Ethel Merman

Ethel Merman

Ethel Merman was an American actress and singer. Known primarily for her powerful voice and roles in musical theatre, she has been called "the undisputed First Lady of the musical comedy stage." Among the many standards introduced by Merman in Broadway musicals are "I Got Rhythm", "Everything's...

 anthem There's No Business Like Show Business

There's No Business Like Show Business

"There's No Business Like Show Business" is an Irving Berlin song, written for the musical Annie Get Your Gun and orchestrated by Ted Royal. The song, a slightly tongue-in-cheek salute to the glamor and excitement of a life in show business, is sung in the musical by members of Buffalo Bill's Wild...

.

By 1947 Royal went out on his own and struck it big with his sole credit for the atmospheric orchestrations heard in Brigadoon. Other principal orchestration credits were for Loesser's first show Where's Charley?

Where's Charley?

Where's Charley? is a musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by George Abbott. The story was based on the play Charley's Aunt by Brandon Thomas. The musical debuted on Broadway in 1948 and was revived on Broadway and in the West End...

, Harold Arlen

Harold Arlen

Harold Arlen was an American composer of popular music, having written over 500 songs, a number of which have become known the world over. In addition to composing the songs for The Wizard of Oz, including the classic 1938 song, "Over the Rainbow,” Arlen is a highly regarded contributor to the...

's House of Flowers

House of Flowers (musical)

House of Flowers is a musical by Harold Arlen and Truman Capote , based on his own short story, first published in Breakfast at Tiffany's as one of three extra pieces besides the titular novella...

, the cult classic Flahooley

Flahooley

Flahooley is a musical with a book by E. Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy, lyrics by Harburg, and music by Sammy Fain.The allegorical tale is set in fictional Capsulanti, USA, site of the headquarters for B.G. Bigelow, Incorporated, the largest toy corporation in the world...

and Mr. Wonderful

Mr. Wonderful (musical)

Mr. Wonderful is a musical with a book by Joseph Stein and Will Glickman, and music and lyrics by Jerry Bock, Larry Holofcener, and George David Weiss....

, headlining Sammy Davis Jr. With Charles L. Cooke he came up with the right 1920s sounds for Sandy Wilson

Sandy Wilson

Sandy Wilson is an English composer and lyricist, best known for his musical The Boy Friend .-Biography:Wilson was born Alexander Galbraith Wilson in Sale, Greater Manchester, and was educated at Harrow School and Oriel College, Oxford. During the war he served in the Royal Ordnance Corps in Great...

's The Boy Friend

The Boy Friend

The Boy Friend is a musical by Sandy Wilson. The musical's original 1954 London production ran for 2,078 performances, making it briefly the third-longest running musical in West End or Broadway history until it was surpassed by Salad Days...

.

Final credits

Personal problems, including the tragic death of his only daughter on her honeymoon, started to impinge upon his career and there were fewer assignments in the 1960s. He accepted minor arranging chores from Irwin Kostal

Irwin Kostal

Irwin Kostal was an American musical arranger of films and an orchestrator of Broadway musicals.Born in Chicago, Illinois, Kostal opted not to attend college, instead teaching himself musical arranging by studying the symphonic scores available at his local library...

 for forgettable television programs and did the scores for a pair of silent film compilations.

During the late 40s, Royal had taught composition and arranging at the Juilliard School

Juilliard School

The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...

and in his retirement wrote a couple of unfinished textbooks on orchestration, which are in his papers at the Music & Performing Arts Section of the New York Public Library.