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William "Bill" Benjamin Lava (March 18, 1911 – February 20, 1971) was a composer and arranger who composed and conducted music for feature films as well as that for the Warner Bros.' '' Looney Tunes'' and '' Merrie Melodies'' animated cartoons from 1962 to 1969, replacing the deceased
Milt Franklyn Milton J. Franklyn (born Milton Julius Frumkin; September 16, 1897 – April 24, 1962) was an American musical composer and arranger who worked on the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes animated cartoons. Career Franklyn was born in New York City Sept ...
, making him the last composer and arranger in the classic era of Warner Bros. Cartoons. Lava's music was markedly different from that of Franklyn and previous composer Carl Stalling, with a tendency towards atonality. A sense of tension is often created in Lava's scores using sequences based on the notes of the diminished seventh chord. Lava also composed and sang the theme to the TV western series ''
Cheyenne The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian languages, Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized tribe, federally recognize ...
'' and composed the original theme from '' Gunsmoke''.


Career

Lava was educated at Von Humboldt Grammar School and
Lane Tech High School In road transport, a lane is part of a roadway that is designated to be used by a single line of vehicles to control and guide drivers and reduce traffic conflicts. Most public roads (highways) have at least two lanes, one for traffic in each ...
in Chicago, then attended Northwestern University where his major was journalism. He studied conducting with Albert Coates in Los Angeles. Lava also wrote short stories for various magazines and was the editor of ''Northwestern Commerce Magazine'' and associate editor of ''Purple Parrot.''. Arriving in Hollywood in 1936, Lava arranged for musical radio programs, then scored a number of serials such as '' Zorro's Fighting Legion'' and motion pictures, such as ''The Painted Stallion''; ''A Boy and His Dog''; ''Embraceable You''; '' Dangerously They Live''; ''The Hidden Hand''; ''I Won't Play''; ''Star in the Night'' and '' Hitler Lives.'' He was also responsible for scores for the Warner Bros.' ''Joe McDoakes'' short subjects and Republic serials. Among his compositions during this era were ''The Moonrise Song (It Just Dawned On Me).'' During World War II Lava composed music for various
United States Department of War The United States Department of War, also called the War Department (and occasionally War Office in the early years), was the United States Cabinet department originally responsible for the operation and maintenance of the United States Army, ...
documentary films. Walt Disney Productions hired Lava in the mid-1950s, where he wrote or co-wrote the incidental music for ''
Zorro Zorro ( Spanish for 'fox') is a fictional character created in 1919 by American pulp writer Johnston McCulley, appearing in works set in the Pueblo of Los Angeles in Alta California. He is typically portrayed as a dashing masked vigilant ...
'' and the Spin and Marty and Hardy Boys segments of '' The Mickey Mouse Club''. While he was later best known for cartoon music, Lava did not score any cartoons at Disney, though he is credited with the score for 1955's TV segment ''The Story of the Silly Symphony''. On his arrival at the Warner Bros.' cartoon studio, Lava's first assignment was the Tweety cartoon ''
The Jet Cage ''The Jet Cage'' is a 1962 Warner Bros. ''Looney Tunes'' cartoon directed by Friz Freleng. The short was released on September 22, 1962, and stars Tweety and Sylvester. Voice actors are Mel Blanc (doing the voices of Sylvester, Tweety and Blac ...
.'' Franklyn had scored the first two minutes of the cartoon when he died suddenly of a heart attack; though Lava completed the cartoon, Franklyn was credited with the entire score. Franklyn used strings and flutes in his portion, arranged similarly to his earlier cartoons, while Lava's score sounds more mechanical and less orchestrated, with a xylophone at one point. Lava's first credited cartoon is '' Good Noose'', also released in 1962. Although Lava's previous work also sounded mechanical, it was greatly enhanced by the studio orchestra. However, at the time of his arrival, Warner Bros. reduced, and later dismantled, the full-time studio orchestra. Without the music budget that he was accustomed to, Lava was forced to work with a much smaller orchestra to record his scores.


Television

Lava was responsible for many scores, including those heard in eleven Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoons, released from 1965–1966 subcontracted by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises to
Format Films Format Films was a television animation studio which was founded by Herbert Klynn in 1959 with Jules Engel as vice president, Bob McIntosh and Joseph Mugnaini, all of whom were animators. It was most active during the 1960s, producing episode ...
. The budgets for these cartoons, all directed by Rudy Larriva and known as the "Larriva Eleven", were even tighter still, so much so that only the first short, '' Run, Run, Sweet Road Runner'' had real scored music. The other ten (from ''
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'' to '' Clippety Clobbered'') used a set of generic musical cues, which did not follow the action closely as scores did in other Warner Brothers productions. However, he did manage to produce proper scores for two out of the three Road Runner/Wile E. shorts produced fully by DePatie-Freleng, ''
Rushing Roulette ''Rushing Roulette'' is a 1965 Warner Bros. ''Merrie Melodies'' cartoon directed by Robert McKimson. The short was released on July 31, 1965, and stars Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. It was the second Road Runner cartoon directed by someone ...
'' and '' The Wild Chase'' (also featuring Speedy Gonzales and
Sylvester Sylvester or Silvester is a name derived from the Latin adjective ''silvestris'' meaning "wooded" or "wild", which derives from the noun ''silva'' meaning "woodland". Classical Latin spells this with ''i''. In Classical Latin, ''y'' represented a ...
). Overall, as mentioned above, Lava’s first short at Warner Bros. was the 1962 Tweety and
Sylvester Sylvester or Silvester is a name derived from the Latin adjective ''silvestris'' meaning "wooded" or "wild", which derives from the noun ''silva'' meaning "woodland". Classical Latin spells this with ''i''. In Classical Latin, ''y'' represented a ...
short ''The Jet Cage''. The first short for which he provided a complete score was the Daffy Duck short ''Good Noose'', also released in 1962. ''Good Noose'' was also the first short for which he was credited; unlike the remaining shorts produced at the original Warner Bros. Cartoons studio, where he was credited as "Bill Lava", he was here credited as "William Lava", which would not happen again until he was once again credited as "William Lava" from 1967 to 1969, for the three shorts produced by
Format Productions Format Films was a television animation studio which was founded by Herbert Klynn in 1959 with Jules Engel as vice president, Bob McIntosh and Joseph Mugnaini, all of whom were animators. It was most active during the 1960s, producing episodes o ...
(only serving as supervisor on '' Quacker Tracker'') and for the entirety of the shorts produced at Warner Bros.-Seven Arts. Lava also composed music for 19 of the 124 Pink Panther cartoons (USA, 1964, animation), always based on Henry Mancini's original theme, adapting it to closely follow character action. Walter Greene scored the nineteenth cartoon, ''
Pink, Plunk, Plink This is a list of the original 124 ''Pink Panther'' animated shorts produced between December 18, 1964, and February 1, 1980, by DePatie–Freleng Enterprises (DFE Films). 92 shorts were released theatrically. The first 62 entries appeared on Sa ...
'', however Lava scored the following one, ''
Smile Pretty, Say Pink This is a list of the original 124 ''Pink Panther ''The Pink Panther'' is an American media franchise primarily focusing on a series of comedy-mystery films featuring an inept French police detective, Inspector Jacques Clouseau. The franchise ...
''. Greene scored all the following shorts (excluding ''
Extinct Pink This is a list of the original 124 ''Pink Panther ''The Pink Panther'' is an American media franchise primarily focusing on a series of comedy-mystery films featuring an inept French police detective, Inspector Jacques Clouseau. The franchise ...
'', composed by Doug Goodwin, who was known for his music for other DePatie-Freleng shorts series such as '' The Ant and the Aardvark'' and '' Roland and Rattfink'') until ''
Therapeutic Pink This is a list of the original 124 ''Pink Panther ''The Pink Panther'' is an American media franchise primarily focusing on a series of comedy-mystery films featuring an inept French police detective, Inspector Jacques Clouseau. The franchise ...
''. Following this, the remaining shorts would be aired on television as part of ''The All New Pink Panther Show'' (although they would be rereleased theatrically), where all shorts utilized music cues composed by Steve DePatie (son of series co-producer David H. DePatie). Starting with ''
Congratulations It's Pink This is a list of the original 124 ''Pink Panther ''The Pink Panther'' is an American media franchise primarily focusing on a series of comedy-mystery films featuring an inept French police detective, Inspector Jacques Clouseau. The franchise ...
'' and ending with ''
Therapeutic Pink This is a list of the original 124 ''Pink Panther ''The Pink Panther'' is an American media franchise primarily focusing on a series of comedy-mystery films featuring an inept French police detective, Inspector Jacques Clouseau. The franchise ...
'', both Greene's and Lava's music were utilized in the cartoons. He earned the 1964 Academy Award for Best Cartoon Short, ''The Pink Phink'' and he co-authored the music for the movie '' PT-109 ''. He also composed music for '' The Battle of Britain '' and the documentary '' Hitler Lives ''. Lava co-wrote the theme (with Irving Taylor) and most of the incidental music for the TV series '' F Troop''. Lava also composed the silent-film music for the "bookend" sequences at the beginning and end of the 1961 '' Twilight Zone'' episode " Once Upon a Time". Lava was also employed as Music Supervisor with David Rose in a couple of seasons of '' Bonanza''. Although Lava's feature film work was not as prolific, he composed the scores to movies such as '' Wall of Noise'' (1963), '' Chamber of Horrors'' (1966), '' Chubasco'' (1968), '' In Enemy Country'' (1968), '' Assignment to Kill'' (1968), '' The Good Guys and the Bad Guys'' (1969) and ''
Dracula vs. Frankenstein ''Dracula vs. Frankenstein'' is a 1971 American science fiction horror film directed and co-produced by Al Adamson. The film stars J. Carrol Naish as Dr. Durea, a descendant of Dr. Frankenstein who is working on a blood serum for his assista ...
'' (1971).


Personal life

William Lava was the son of Abraham Lava (1882–1958) and Rose Chernavsky (1886–1938). He married Lenore Goldman on December 31, 1932 in Chicago, Illinois. They had two daughters, Charmaine (1938–2012) and Rochelle Lava (1939–1997)."United States Census, 1940," database with images, ''FamilySearch'' (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K9C2-W4Z : July 27, 2019), William Love, Councilmanic District 3, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Township, Los Angeles, California, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 60–189, sheet 5A, line 16, family 114, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, NARA digital publication T627. Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 – 2007, RG 29. Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012, roll 404 A staunch anti-communist, Lava became known as an outspoken critic of the
Cuban Revolution The Cuban Revolution ( es, Revolución Cubana) was carried out after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state and the failed mass strike in opposition that followed. After failing to contest Batista in cour ...
. He spoke in favor of direct military action against the Castro regime, continuing to protest in this manner from 1959 until his death.


References


External links

* * * Th
William Lava papers
at th
American Heritage Center
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lava, William 1911 births 1971 deaths 20th-century American composers 20th-century classical musicians American film score composers Medill School of Journalism alumni Musicians from Saint Paul, Minnesota Warner Bros. Cartoons music composers