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Ira Newborn | |
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| Birth name | James Ira Newborn |
| Born | December 26, 1949 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Composer, orchestrator, conductor, actor |
| Musical career | |
| Genres | Film score |
| Years active | 1975–present |
James Ira Newborn (born December 26, 1949) is an American musician, actor, orchestrator and composer, best known for his work composing motion picture soundtracks.
Newborn was born in New York City. He has scored or written songs for films such as Sixteen Candles , [1] Weird Science , Ferris Bueller's Day Off , [2] [3] Uncle Buck , Planes, Trains and Automobiles , Mallrats , Ace Ventura: Pet Detective [4] and Into the Night , for which he wrote music for B. B. King . He frequently worked with director John Hughes. He also stepped in as musical director and producer for The Blues Brothers . Newborn's many film credits also include a small acting role in Xanadu, in which he appears as a 1940s bandleader.
Newborn may be best known for composing the soundtrack for The Naked Gun series of police satires starring Leslie Nielsen. Newborn's brassy big band/blues theme song for the franchise first appeared on the TV series that inspired the films, 1982's Police Squad! .
Newborn has also worked in concerts and commercials, on Broadway and in the recording industry as a performer, arranger, composer and conductor.
He is also an adjunct faculty member at New York University, from which he received his bachelor's degree in 1972. [5] Influenced by an eclectic variety of composers, such as Johann Sebastian Bach, James Brown and the Beatles, as a guitarist Newborn led and played in several musical groups before signing on as the musical director for the vocal group the Manhattan Transfer.
Newborn has contributed to albums by many artists such as Ray Charles, Diana Ross, Billy Joel and the Pointer Sisters.
Newborn wrote two songs performed by B.B. King for the Into the Night soundtrack: "My Lucille" and "Into the Night." Two songs co-written by Newborn appeared on the Into the Night soundtrack album, but not in the film: "Don't Make Me Sorry," co-written by Joe Esposito and performed by Patti LaBelle, and "Keep It Light," co-written by Reginald "Sonny" Burke and performed by Thelma Houston.
Newborn co-wrote "Clap Your Hands" for the Manhattan Transfer and "Get It On and Have a Party" for Pattie Brooks on the Doctor Detroit soundtrack. Both "Geek Boogie" from Sixteen Candles and "Weird Romance" from Weird Science were credited to Ira and the Geeks.
He co-wrote "I Guess I'm Just Screwed" for The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear with David Zucker and Robert LoCash. With Peter Segal, he co-wrote "The Food Song" for the Naked Gun 33+1⁄3: The Final Insult soundtrack.
The Breakfast Club is a 1985 American indie teen coming-of-age comedy-drama film written, produced, and directed by John Hughes. It stars Emilio Estevez, Paul Gleason, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Molly Ringwald, and Ally Sheedy. The film tells the story of five teenagers from different high school cliques who serve a Saturday detention overseen by their authoritarian vice principal.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off is a 1986 American teen comedy film written, co-produced, and directed by John Hughes. The film stars Matthew Broderick, Mia Sara, and Alan Ruck, with supporting roles from Jennifer Grey, Jeffrey Jones, Cindy Pickett, Edie McClurg, Lyman Ward, and Charlie Sheen. It tells the story of a charismatic high school slacker, Ferris, who skips school with his best friend Cameron and his girlfriend Sloane for a day in Chicago, regularly breaking the fourth wall to explain his techniques and inner thoughts.
John Wilden Hughes Jr. was an American filmmaker, producer, and screenwriter. He began his career in 1970 as an author of humorous essays and stories for the National Lampoon magazine. He went on in Hollywood to write, produce, and direct some of the most successful live-action comedy films of the 1980s and 1990s. He directed, wrote or produced such films as Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Planes, Trains and Automobiles, She's Having a Baby, and Uncle Buck, and wrote the films National Lampoon's Vacation, Mr. Mom, National Lampoon's European Vacation, Pretty in Pink, The Great Outdoors, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, Home Alone, Dutch, and Beethoven.
Anthony Michael Hall is an American actor, producer and comedian. He starred in the teen-centered John Hughes films Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Weird Science.
Weird Science is a 1985 American teen science fantasy comedy film written and directed by John Hughes and starring Anthony Michael Hall, Ilan Mitchell-Smith, and Kelly LeBrock. It is based on the 1951 pre-Comics Code comic "Made of the Future" by Al Feldstein, which appeared in the magazine of the same name. The title song was written and performed by American new wave band Oingo Boingo. The film is regarded as a cult classic.
Howard Leslie Shore is a Canadian composer, conductor and orchestrator noted for his film scores. He has composed the scores for over 80 films, most notably the scores for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies. He won three Academy Awards for his work on The Lord of the Rings, with one being for the song "Into the West", an award he shared with Eurythmics lead vocalist Annie Lennox and writer/producer Fran Walsh, who wrote the lyrics. He is a consistent collaborator with director David Cronenberg, having scored all but one of his films since 1979, and collaborated with Martin Scorsese on six of his films.
Alan Douglas Ruck is an American actor. He is best known for portraying Cameron Frye in John Hughes' film Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), as well as television roles as Stuart Bondek on the ABC sitcom Spin City (1996–2002) and Connor Roy on the HBO series Succession (2018–2023), the latter earning him Primetime Emmy and Golden Globe Award nominations. His other film credits include Bad Boys (1983), Three Fugitives (1989), Young Guns II (1990), Speed (1994), Star Trek Generations (1994), and Twister (1996).
Sixteen Candles is a 1984 American coming-of-age teen comedy film starring Molly Ringwald, Michael Schoeffling, and Anthony Michael Hall. Written and directed by John Hughes in his directorial debut, it was the first in a string of films Hughes would direct, centering on teenage life. The film follows newly 16-year-old Samantha Baker (Ringwald), who deals with a seemingly unrequited crush on high school senior Jake Ryan (Schoeffling) while also being pursued by freshman Farmer Ted (Hall).
The Naked Gun 2½: The Smell of Fear is a 1991 American crime comedy film. It is the sequel to the 1988 film The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! and the second installment in the Naked Gun film series. The film stars Leslie Nielsen as the comically bumbling Police Lt. Frank Drebin of Police Squad!. Priscilla Presley plays the role of Jane, with O. J. Simpson as Nordberg and George Kennedy as police captain Ed Hocken. The film also features Robert Goulet as the villainous Quentin Hapsburg and Richard Griffiths as renewable fuel advocate Dr. Albert S. Meinheimer. Zsa Zsa Gabor, Mel Tormé and members of the Chicago Bears have cameo roles.
Adam Lyons Schlesinger was an American musician, songwriter, composer, and record producer. He was a founding member of the bands Fountains of Wayne, Ivy, and Tinted Windows, and was also a member of the band Fever High. He also wrote songs for television and film, for which he won three Emmy Awards, a Grammy Award, and the ASCAP Pop Music Award, and was nominated for Academy, Tony, and Golden Globe Awards. He died of complications from COVID-19 at age 52.
Not Another Teen Movie is a 2001 American teen parody film directed by Joel Gallen and written by Mike Bender, Adam Jay Epstein, Andrew Jacobson, Phil Beauman, and Buddy Johnson. It features Chyler Leigh, Chris Evans, Jaime Pressly, Eric Christian Olsen, Eric Jungmann, Mia Kirshner, Deon Richmond, Cody McMains, Sam Huntington, Samm Levine, Cerina Vincent, Ron Lester, Randy Quaid, Lacey Chabert, Riley Smith and Samaire Armstrong.
Alf Faye Heiberg Clausen is an American film and television composer. He is best known for his work scoring many episodes of The Simpsons, for which he was the sole composer between 1990 and 2017. Clausen has scored or orchestrated music for more than 30 films and television shows, including Moonlighting, The Naked Gun, ALF and Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Clausen received an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Berklee College of Music in 1996.
Into the Night is a 1985 American black comedy action thriller film directed by John Landis, starring Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer. The film focuses on an insomniac aerospace engineer (Goldblum), who is approached by a jewel smuggler (Pfeiffer) whose life is in danger, on the run from several international foes.
Richard Stone was an American composer. He played an important part in the revival of Warner Bros. animation in the 1990s, composing music and songs for Looney Tunes, Tiny Toon Adventures, Taz-Mania, The Plucky Duck Show, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain, Histeria!, The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries, Freakazoid!, and Road Rovers, as well as the Warner Bros. Family Entertainment fanfare. Many consider him to be an heir to the style of Carl W. Stalling.
Michael Lynn Piccirillo is an American record producer, songwriter, and musician, who began working professionally in the Los Angeles music business in 1976. In conjunction with production partner George Tobin, and subsequently Gary Goetzman, Piccirillo co-produced 31 albums between 1976 and 1992.
"Oh Yeah" is a single released in 1985 by the band Yello and featured on their album Stella. The song features a mix of electronic music and manipulated vocals. The song gained popularity after being featured in the films Ferris Bueller's Day Off and The Secret of My Success, among other films. It is a popular staple in pop culture.
"Weird Science" is a song by American new wave band Oingo Boingo. Written by frontman Danny Elfman, it is the theme song to the Weird Science film and television series. It was released on the film's soundtrack, as well as Oingo Boingo's fifth studio album, Dead Man's Party (1985), in a longer mix. The song reached No. 45 on the US Billboard Hot 100, No. 21 on the US Dance Club Charts, and No. 81 in Canada. It is Oingo Boingo's most successful single.
Shermer High School is a fictional high school, and the nexus for many of American director John Hughes' films. The Breakfast Club and Weird Science explicitly reference it by name. Hughes has stated in interviews that all of his films take place in the same fictional town of Shermer, Illinois and that the characters know and interact with each other outside of the narrative thread:
John Hughes: When I started making movies, I thought I would just invent a town where everything happened. Everybody, in all of my movies, is from Shermer, Illinois. Del Griffith from Planes, Trains and Automobiles lives two doors down from John Bender. Ferris Bueller knew Samantha Baker from Sixteen Candles. For 15 years I've written my Shermer stories in prose, collecting its history.
Alexander Burke is an American musician, songwriter, composer, music producer, television producer, writer and actor. From 2013 to 2016 he was the keyboard player for the band Save Ferris.
Winnie the Pooh is the soundtrack album to the 2011 film of the same name, based on the eponymous novel created by A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard, and directed by Stephen J. Anderson and Don Hall, the latter in his feature directorial debut. Henry Jackman composed the film score with additional music by Christopher Willis. The original songs were written by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez. The soundtrack was released by Walt Disney Records on July 12, 2011.
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