Leigh Harline | |
---|---|
Birth name | Leigh Adrian Harline |
Born |
Salt Lake City, Utah |
March 26, 1907
Origin | Salt Lake City, Utah |
Died | December 10, 1969 Long Beach, California |
(aged 62)
Occupation(s) | Composer |
Leigh Adrian Harline (March 26, 1907 – December 10, 1969) was a film composer and songwriter. He was known for his "musical sophistication that was uniquely 'Harline-esque' by weaving rich tapestries of mood-setting underscores and penning memorable melodies for animated shorts and features."
Leigh Harline was born March 26, 1907, in Salt Lake City, Utah, the youngest of 13 children, to soldier Carl Härlin and his wife Johanna Matilda. His parents came from the village of Härfsta in Simtuna parish, Sweden. They joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1888 and moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1891. In the U.S. they changed their surname to Harline. Leigh was baptized a member of the LDS Church at age eight.
Harline graduated from the University of Utah and studied piano and organ with Mormon Tabernacle Choir conductor J. Spencer Cornwall. In 1928, he moved to California working at radio stations in San Francisco and Los Angeles as a composer, conductor, arranger, instrumentalist, singer and announcer. In 1931, he provided music for the first transcontinental radio broadcast to originate from the West Coast. He was then hired by Walt Disney where he scored more than 50 tunes, including for the Silly Symphonies cartoon series in the 1930s.
Harline, Frank Churchill, Paul Smith and Larry Morey then scored Disney's first animated feature-length cartoon Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1937. Snow White contained several classic songs, including "I'm Wishing", "Whistle While You Work", "Heigh-Ho" and "Some Day My Prince Will Come."