William Axt was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 composer of nearly two hundred film score

Film score

A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...

s.

Born in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, Axt graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School

DeWitt Clinton High School

DeWitt Clinton High School is an American high school located in the Bronx, New York City, New York.-History:Clinton opened in 1897 at 60 West 13th Street at the northern end of Greenwich Village under the name of Boys High School, although this Boys High School was not related to the one in Brooklyn...

 in The Bronx

The Bronx

The Bronx is the northernmost of the five boroughs of New York City. It is also known as Bronx County, the last of the 62 counties of New York State to be incorporated...

 and studied at the National Conservatory of Music of America

National Conservatory of Music of America

The National Conservatory of Music of America was an institution for higher education in music founded in 1885 in New York City by Jeannette Meyers Thurber...

. He served as an assistant conductor for the Hammerstein Grand Opera Company

Oscar Hammerstein I

Oscar Hammerstein I was a businessman, theater impresario and composer in New York City. His passion for opera led him to open several opera houses, and he rekindled opera's popularity in America...

 and was the musical director for the Capitol Theatre

Capitol Theatre (New York City)

The Capitol Theatre was a movie palace located at 1645 Broadway, just north of Times Square in New York City, across from the Winter Garden Theatre. Designed by Thomas W. Lamb, the Capitol seated 4000 and opened October 24, 1919. It was one of the first of the large lavish movie theaters that...

 in Manhattan

Manhattan

Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...

 before joining the music department at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...

 in 1919. He earned a Doctor of Musical Arts

Doctor of Musical Arts

The Doctor of Musical Arts degree is a doctoral academic degree in music. The D.M.A. combines advanced studies in an applied area of specialization with graduate-level academic study in subjects such as music history, music theory, or music pedagogy. The D.M.A...

 degree from the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 in 1922.

Axt's credits include The Prisoner of Zenda

The Prisoner of Zenda (1922 film)

The Prisoner of Zenda is a 1922 silent adventure film, one of the many adaptations of Anthony Hope's popular 1894 novel of the same name and the subsequent 1896 play by Hope and Edward Rose.-Plot:...

(1922), Greed

Greed (film)

Greed is a 1924 American dramatic silent film. It was directed by Erich von Stroheim and starring Gibson Gowland, Zasu Pitts, Jean Hersholt, Dale Fuller, Tempe Pigott, Sylvia Ashton, Chester Conklin, Joan Standing and Jack Curtis....

(1924), The Big Parade

The Big Parade

The Big Parade is a 1925 silent film. It tells the story of an idle rich boy who joins the US Army's Rainbow Division and is sent to France to fight in World War I, becomes friends with two working class men, experiences the horrors of trench warfare, and finds love with a French girl.The film was...

(1925), Ben-Hur

Ben-Hur (1925 film)

Ben-Hur is a 1925 silent film directed by Fred Niblo. It was a blockbuster hit for newly merged Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. This was the second film based on the novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace...

(1925), Don Juan

Don Juan (1926 film)

Don Juan is a Warner Brothers film, directed by Alan Crosland. It was the first feature-length film with synchronized Vitaphone sound effects and musical soundtrack, though it has no spoken dialogue...

(1926), Camille (1927), White Shadows in the South Seas

White Shadows in the South Seas

White Shadows in the South Seas is a silent film adventure romance produced by Cosmopolitan Productions in association with MGM and distributed by MGM. The movie was directed by W.S. Van Dyke and starred Monte Blue and Raquel Torres...

 (1928), Our Dancing Daughters

Our Dancing Daughters

Our Dancing Daughters is a 1928 MGM silent drama film starring Joan Crawford and John Mack Brown , about the "loosening of youth morals" that took place during the 1920s. The film was directed by Harry Beaumont and produced by Hunt Stromberg...

(1928), Where East Is East

Where East Is East

Where East Is East, is a 1929 silent movie starring Lon Chaney, Sr. as an animal trapper in Laos. The picture is Chaney's penultimate silent film and the last of his collaborations with director Tod Browning...

(1929), The Last of Mrs. Cheyney

The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1929 film)

The Last of Mrs. Cheyney is a 1929 American comedy film directed by Sidney Franklin. The screenplay by Hanns Kräly is based on the 1925 play of the same name by Frederick Lonsdale...

(1929), Madame X

Madame X (1929 film)

Madame X is a 1929 drama film directed by Lionel Barrymore, who was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director. Ruth Chatterton was nominated for Best Actress for her performance as a fallen woman.-Plot:...

(1929), Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise)

Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise)

Susan Lenox is a 1931 film starring Greta Garbo and Clark Gable in their only movie together. The movie was made by MGM and was directed and produced by Robert Z. Leonard from a screenplay by Leon Gordon, Zelda Sears and Edith Fitzgerald adapted by Wanda Tuchock from the novel by David Graham...

(1931), Private Lives

Private Lives (film)

Private Lives is a 1931 American comedy film directed by Sidney Franklin. The screenplay by Hanns Kräly and Richard Schayer is based on the 1930 play of the same title by Noël Coward.-Plot synopsis:...

(1931), Grand Hotel

Grand Hotel (film)

Grand Hotel is a 1932 American drama film directed by Edmund Goulding. The screenplay by William A. Drake and Béla Balázs is based on the 1930 play of the same title by Drake, who had adapted it from the 1929 novel Menschen im Hotel by Vicki Baum...

(1932), Dinner at Eight

Dinner at Eight (film)

Dinner at Eight is a Pre-Code 1933 comedy of manners/drama produced by MGM Studios. The film was adapted to the screen by Frances Marion and Herman J. Mankiewicz from the play by George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber, with additional dialogue supplied by Donald Ogden Stewart. Produced by David O...

(1933), Sons of the Desert (1933), Men in White

Men in White (1934 film)

Men in White is a Pre-Code film starring Clark Gable and Myrna Loy, and directed by Ryszard Bolesławski. Because of the suggested illicit romance and the suggested abortion in the movie, it was frequently cut...

(1934), The Thin Man

The Thin Man (film)

The Thin Man is a 1934 American comic detective film starring William Powell and Myrna Loy as Nick and Nora Charles, a flirtatious married couple who banter wittily as they solve crimes with ease. Nick is a hard drinking retired detective and Nora a wealthy heiress...

(1934), David Copperfield (1935), Libeled Lady

Libeled Lady

Libeled Lady is a 1936 screwball comedy film starring Jean Harlow, William Powell, Myrna Loy and Spencer Tracy, written by George Oppenheimer, Howard Emmett Rogers, Wallace Sullivan and Maurine Dallas Watkins, and directed by Jack Conway....

(1936), Little Nellie Kelly

Little Nellie Kelly

Little Nellie Kelly is a 1940 musical comedy film based on the stage musical by George M. Cohan which was a hit on Broadway in 1922 and 1923. The film was written by Jack McGowan and directed by Norman Taurog...

(1940), and Madame Curie

Madame Curie (film)

Madame Curie is a 1943 biographical film made by MGM. It was directed by Mervyn LeRoy and produced by Sidney Franklin from a screenplay by Paul Osborn, Paul H. Rameau, and Aldous Huxley , adapted from the biography by Eve Curie....

(1943).

Axt retired from the film industry to raise cattle and breed horses in Laytonville, California

Laytonville, California

Laytonville is a census-designated place in Mendocino County, California, United States. Laytonville, is located north-northwest of Willits, at an elevation of 1670 feet...

. He died in Ukiah, California

Ukiah, California

The average high temperature is 73.5 °F . Average low temperature is 46.1 °F . Temperatures reach 90 °F on an average of 65.6 days annually and 100 °F on an average of 14.4 days annually. Due to frequent low humidity, summer temperatures normally drop into the fifties at night. Freezing...

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