Robert Hood Bowers (24 May 1877 - 29 December 1941) was an American composer, conductor and musical director of operettas and stage musicals, and a conductor and musical director for radio. He composed the musical scores for some of the most popular silent movies, including '' Aloma of the South Seas'' and ''

A Daughter of the Gods ''A Daughter of the Gods'' was a 1916 American silent fantasy drama film written and directed by Herbert Brenon. The film was controversial because of the sequences of what was regarded as superfluous nudity by the character Anitia, played by A ...

''.

Biography

Born and raised in

Chambersburg, Pennsylvania Chambersburg is a borough in and the county seat of Franklin County, in the South Central region of Pennsylvania, United States. It is in the Cumberland Valley, which is part of the Great Appalachian Valley, and north of Maryland and the ...

, Robert Hood Bowers was the eldest son of Ellen Graham Heyser and Oliver C. Bowers (a district attorney of Franklin County, and nominee for the Democratic Party for

Pennsylvania's 17th congressional district Pennsylvania's 17th congressional district is represented by Democrat Conor Lamb. The district encompasses the entirety of Beaver County, a small portion of southwestern Butler County, and all parts of Allegheny County not part of the 18th ...

for the 1904 elections). When Bowers was 14, he went to the

Franklin & Marshall College Franklin & Marshall College (F&M) is a private liberal arts college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It employs 175 full-time faculty members and has a student body of approximately 2,400 full-time students. It was founded upon the merger of Fran ...

in Lancaster, graduating in 1896. He started working as head of the Musical Department of Cheltenham Military Academy. At the same time, he continued his musical studies first with Constantin von Sternberg and later with

Frederick Grant Gleason Frederick Grant Gleason (born 17 December 1848 in Middletown, Connecticut - died Chicago, 6 December 1903) was an American composer, and director of the Chicago Conservatory from 1900 to 1903. Gleason's father was a banker. Like many other wel ...

at the Conservatory of Chicago, where he won the gold medal in 1902. He married Virginia Belving on September 16, 1905. Their only son was also called Robert Hood Bowers (born in 1906, he became a Professor of English at the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

.) Working as a conductor for

Victor Herbert Victor August Herbert (February 1, 1859 – May 26, 1924) was an American composer, cellist and conductor of English and Irish ancestry and German training. Although Herbert enjoyed important careers as a cello soloist and conductor, he is bes ...

for five years, and as a conductor at the radio stations

WMCA WMCA may refer to: *WMCA (AM), a radio station operating in New York City * West Midlands Combined Authority, the combined authority of the West Midlands metropolitan county in the United Kingdom *Wikimedia Canada The Wikimedia Foundation, ...

, WEAF and WOR, as well as for the

Columbia Phonograph Company Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. It was founded on January 15, 1889, evolving from the Ame ...

, Robert Hood Bowers composed songs, school music, operettas and musicals. He also composed dances in an 'oriental' style for modern dance pioneer Ruth St. Denis and music for comic operas of

Jesse Louis Lasky Jesse Louis Lasky (September 13, 1880 – January 13, 1958) was an American pioneer motion picture producer who was a key founder of what was to become Paramount Pictures, and father of screenwriter Jesse L. Lasky Jr. Early life Born in t ...

. He was employed at the School of Radio Technique at the

Rockefeller Center Rockefeller Center is a large complex consisting of 19 commercial buildings covering between 48th Street and 51st Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The 14 original Art Deco buildings, commissioned by the Rockefeller family, span th ...

, as the head of the musical department for five years before his death. He died in New York in 1941.

Reception

His score for ''A Daughter of the Gods'', which was the most expensive movie made until then, was created especially for the movie, which was then unusual. The score was explicitly mentioned in the advertisements for the movie and was described in 1921 as the most memorable up to that time, and as "a high point of motion picture music".

Film scores

*''

'', 1916 *'' Aloma of the South Seas'', 1926

Musicals, plays and operettas

*''A Certain Party'', 1911, written by Edward W. Townsend and Frank O'Malley *''A Lonely Romeo'', 1919 *''California'', 1912, codirected by

Cecil B. DeMille Cecil Blount DeMille (; August 12, 1881January 21, 1959) was an American film director, producer and actor. Between 1914 and 1958, he made 70 features, both silent and sound films. He is acknowledged as a founding father of the American cine ...

*''East is West'', 1919 *''East of Suez'', 1922 *''Listen In'', 1929 *''

Miss 1917 ''Miss 1917'' is a musical revue with a book by Guy Bolton and P. G. Wodehouse, music by Victor Herbert, Jerome Kern and others, and lyrics by Harry B. Smith, Otto Harbach, Henry Blossom and others. Made up of a string of vignettes, the show fea ...

'', 1917 *''Oh Earnest'', 1927 *''Old English'', 1924 *''Rubes and Roses'', 1903 *''The Antique Girl'', a

Jesse Lasky Jesse Louis Lasky (September 13, 1880 – January 13, 1958) was an American pioneer motion picture producer who was a key founder of what was to become Paramount Pictures, and father of screenwriter Jesse L. Lasky Jr. Early life Born in to ...

production, cocreated by Bowers,

and

William LeBaron William LeBaron (February 16, 1883February 9, 1958) was an American film producer. LeBaron's film credits included ''Cimarron (1931 film), Cimarron'', which won the Academy Award for Best Picture, Academy Award for Outstanding Production at the ...

*''The Beauties'', 1914, Jesse Lasky, written by William LeBaron *''The Hoyden'', 1907, with

Elsie Janis Elsie Janis (born Elsie Bierbower, March 16, 1889 – February 26, 1956) was an American actress of stage and screen, singer, songwriter, screenwriter and radio announcer. Entertaining the troops during World War I immortalized her as " the sw ...

as singer *''The Legionnaires'' *''The Maid and the Mummy'', 1904 *''The Open Road'' *''The Paraders'', 1905 or earlier *''The Red Rose'', 1911 *''The Redheads'', 1913 *''The Scarecrow'', 1911 *''The Silver Star'', 1909, danced by Adeline Genée *''The Vanderbilt Cub'', 1906 with

as singer *''The Wife Tamers'', 1910 *''Ziegfeld Follies'', 1919

Notes

External links

* *
Robert Hood Bowers recordings
at the Discography of American Historical Recordings. {{DEFAULTSORT:Bowers, Robert Hood 1877 births 1941 deaths American film score composers American male film score composers American conductors (music) American male conductors (music) American musical theatre composers People from Cheltenham, Pennsylvania