Georges Delerue

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Georges Delerue

Georges Delerue (March 12, 1925 Roubaix – March 20, 1992 Los Angeles) was a renowned French film composer who composed over 350 scores for cinema and television^[1]. He won numerous important awards including Rome Prize (1949), Emmy Award (1968 - Our World), Genie Award (1986 - Sword Of Gideon), ACE Award (1991 - The Josephine Baker Story) and Academy Award in 1979 for A Little Romance and 4 other Academy Nominations (1969 - Anne of the Thousand Days, 1973 - The Day of the Dolphin, 1977 - Julia and 1985 - Agnes of God).

Le Figaro (France, 1981) referred to him as the "Mozart of cinema" (Georges Delerue le Mozart des salles obscures), and Delerue was the first and perhaps the only composer to win 3 consecutive Cesar Awards (1979 - Get Out Your Handkerchiefs, 1980 - Love on the Run and 1981 - The Last Metro) plus 5 other Cesar Nominations (1977 - Le Grand Escogriffe and Police Python 357, 1983 - La Passante, 1984 - L'été Meurtrier and 1993 Dien Bien Phu). Georges Delerue was a Commander of Arts and Letters, one of France's highest honours.

His career was diverse and he composed frequently for major avant-garde directors, most often François Truffaut, but also for Jean-Luc Godard's film Contempt, and for Alain Resnais, Louis Malle, and Bernardo Bertolucci, besides working on several Hollywood productions like Oliver Stone's Platoon and Salvator.

He composed the music for Flemming Flindt's ballet, Enetime (The Lesson), based on Ionesco's play, La Leçon. During his 42 years career he put his talent to the service of nearly 200 feature movies, 125 short ones, 70 TV films and 35 TV serials. According to many testimonies he would do and redo some cues to fit the new editing of a sequence without any protestation. He insisted to be allowed to orchestrate and conduct himself in order to polish every detail. Georges Delerue was extraordinarily gifted for melody and at creating surrounding overtones which encapsulated the spirit of the movies for which he collaborated, enhancing them often beyond the expectations of their directors. He's a true giant among giants.

Georges Delerue died from a heart attack at the age of 67, just after the recording of the last cue for the soundtrack to Rich In Love. He is buried in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.