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Mel Leven | |
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Born | Melville A. Leven November 11, 1914 Chicago, Illinois, United States |
Died | December 17, 2007 93) Studio City, California, United States | (aged
Occupation | Composer and lyricist |
Melville A. Leven (11 November, 1914–17 December, 2007) was an American composer and lyricist who had a long association with the Walt Disney Company, although he also wrote songs for Peggy Lee ("Every Time"), The Andrews Sisters ("Commoners Boogy"), Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, and Les Brown, among others.
Mel Leven was born in Chicago. His most famous song is arguably "Cruella de Vil" from the 1961 Disney animated feature One Hundred and One Dalmatians , which is claimed to have been written in homage to Thelonious Monk's "Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-Are". [1] That same year, he also wrote the story and new lyrics to sixteen tunes for the film Babes in Toyland . In later years, he wrote songs, stories, and did voice-over work for the PBS children's series Big Blue Marble , as well as working on a number of projects for television commercials. He also composed "When The Buzzards Return To Hinckley Ridge" for the 1969 Disney animated short, "It's Tough to Be a Bird", which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Short Subject in 1970. The song was sung by comedian Ruth Buzzi.
Leven was also in Snap, Crackle, Pop commercials. He also wrote the Little Ranger Nature series for Disney in the 1960s.
His work has been honored with two Emmy Awards and two Peabody Awards.
A conservationist and talented fly fisherman, in retirement Leven traveled the world in pursuit of fish and became a beloved fixture along Northern California rivers in particular. [2] He features prominently in the 2009 documentary Rivers of a Lost Coast, on the decline of the California steelhead population. [3]
According to his son, Leven died on December 17, 2007. He was 93. Mel Leven was divorced and had two children, Bill Leven and a daughter Laurie Fondiler/Leven. His first wife was Vera and second wife' mother of Bill and Laurie was, Jeanie Francis.
101 Dalmatians is a 1996 American adventure comedy film. The film is a live-action adaptation of Walt Disney’s 1961 animated film of almost the same name, itself an adaptation of Dodie Smith's 1956 novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians. Directed by Stephen Herek and co-produced by John Hughes and Ricardo Mestres, it stars Glenn Close, Jeff Daniels, Joely Richardson, Joan Plowright, Hugh Laurie, Mark Williams, and Tim McInnerny. Unlike the 1961 animated film, none of the animals speak.
One Hundred and One Dalmatians is a 1961 American animated adventure comedy film produced by Walt Disney Productions and based on the 1956 novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians by Dodie Smith. The 17th Disney animated feature film, it was directed by Hamilton Luske, Clyde Geronimi and Wolfgang Reitherman and written by Bill Peet, and features the voices of Rod Taylor, Cate Bauer, Betty Lou Gerson, Ben Wright, Lisa Davis, and Martha Wentworth. The film's plot follows a litter of Dalmatian puppies who are kidnapped by the villainous Cruella de Vil ("deVille"), who wants to make their fur into coats. Their parents, Pongo and Perdita, set out to save their puppies from Cruella, in the process of rescuing 84 additional ones that were bought in pet shops, bringing the total of Dalmatians to 101.
The Rescuers is a 1977 American animated adventure comedy-drama film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by Buena Vista Distribution. The 23rd Disney animated feature film. The story follows Bernard and Bianca, two members of the Rescue Aid Society, an international mouse organization dedicated to helping abduction victims around the world. The two mice must free young orphan Penny from two treasure hunters, who intend to use her to help them obtain a giant diamond. The film is based on a series of books by Margery Sharp, most notably The Rescuers (1959) and Miss Bianca (1962).
Alan Irwin Menken is an American composer, best known for his scores and songs for films produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. His scores and songs for The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and Pocahontas (1995) have each won him two Academy Awards. He also composed the scores and songs for Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Newsies (1992), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997), Home on the Range (2004), Enchanted (2007), and Tangled (2010), among others. His accolades include eight Academy Awards, becoming the second most prolific Oscar winner in the music categories after Alfred Newman a Tony Award, eleven Grammy Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards, and a Daytime Emmy Award. Menken is one of seventeen people to have won an Oscar, an Emmy, a Grammy, and a Tony. He is the only person to have won a Razzie, an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony ("REGOT").
Marc Fraser Davis was a prominent American artist and animator for Walt Disney Animation Studios. He was one of Disney's Nine Old Men, the famed core animators of Disney animated films, and was revered for his knowledge and understanding of visual aesthetics. After his work on One Hundred and One Dalmatians he moved to Walt Disney Imagineering to work on rides for Disneyland and Walt Disney World before retiring in 1978.
Cruella de Vil is a fictional character in British author Dodie Smith's 1956 novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians. A pampered and glamorous London heiress and fashion designer, she appears in Walt Disney Productions' 17th animated feature film, 101 Dalmatians (1961), voiced by Betty Lou Gerson; in Disney's 101 Dalmatians II: Patch's London Adventure (2002), voiced by Susanne Blakeslee; in Disney's live-action 101 Dalmatians (1996) and 102 Dalmatians (2000), portrayed by Glenn Close; as well as Cruella (2021), portrayed by Emma Stone; and in many other Disney sequels and spin-offs.
Robert "Bobby" Lopez is an American songwriter for musicals, best known for co-creating The Book of Mormon and Avenue Q, and for co-writing the songs featured in the Disney computer-animated films Frozen, its sequel, Frozen II, and Coco, with his wife Kristen Anderson-Lopez. Of only seventeen people who have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony Award, nicknamed by Philip Michael Thomas in 1984 as the "EGOT", he is the youngest and quickest to win all four, and, as of 2022, is the only person to have won all four awards more than once.
102 Dalmatians is a 2000 American crime comedy film directed by Kevin Lima and produced by Edward S. Feldman and Walt Disney Pictures. The sequel to the 1996 film 101 Dalmatians, a live-action remake of the 1961 Disney animated film of the same name, it stars Glenn Close reprising her role as Cruella de Vil as she attempts to steal puppies for her "grandest" fur coat yet. Glenn Close and Tim McInnerny were the only two actors from the 1996 film to return for the sequel. The film received generally negative reviews from critics and was unable to achieve the box office success of its predecessor, although the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Costume Design.
Brilliant Corners is a studio album by American jazz musician Thelonious Monk. It was his third album for Riverside Records, and the first, for this label, to include his own compositions. The complex title track required over a dozen takes in the studio.
John Cardon Debney is an American composer and conductor of film, television, and video game scores. His work encompasses a variety of mediums and genres including comedy, horror, thriller, and action-adventure. He is a long-time collaborator of The Walt Disney Company, having written music for their films, television series, and theme parks.
Joseph Stanley Williams is an American singer, songwriter and film score composer, best known for his work in the rock band Toto, which he fronted as lead vocalist from 1986 to 1988, 2010 to 2019 and again since 2020. He is a son of film composer John Williams and actress Barbara Ruick and a grandson of jazz drummer Johnny Williams and actors Melville Ruick and Lurene Tuttle.
Paul J. Smith was an American music composer and violinist best known for his work at Disney.
"If I Never Knew You" is a song by American recording artists Jon Secada and Shanice, from Disney's 1995 animated feature film, Pocahontas. The song was written by composer Alan Menken and lyricist Stephen Schwartz, and originally recorded by American singer Judy Kuhn in her film role as the singing voice of Pocahontas, and American actor Mel Gibson in his role as Captain John Smith. Shanice and Secada's version is heard during film's end credits, and was released on September 12, 1995, as the second single from the film's soundtrack by Walt Disney Records, after Vanessa Williams' pop and R&B rendition of the Academy Award-winning "Colors of the Wind".
Frank Edwin Churchill was an American film composer and songwriter. He wrote most of the music for films directed by Walt Disney, such as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Dumbo, Bambi, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, and Peter Pan.
Halloween Screams: A Villainous Surprise in the Skies is a Halloween-themed fireworks show that is presented at Disneyland during the seasonal Mickey's Halloween Party event. Based on the similarly-themed, former fireworks show HalloWishes at Magic Kingdom, Halloween Screams is hosted by Jack Skellington and features appearances from Disney Villains and music from Disney animated features.
Lawrence L. Morey was an American lyricist and screenwriter. He co-wrote some of the most successful songs in Disney films of the 1930s and 1940s, including "Heigh-Ho", "Some Day My Prince Will Come", and "Whistle While You Work", and was also responsible for adapting Felix Salten's book Bambi, A Life in the Woods into the 1942 Disney film Bambi.
101 Dalmatians is an American media franchise owned by The Walt Disney Company and based on Dodie Smith's 1956 novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians. It began in 1961 with the release of the traditionally animated feature film, One Hundred and One Dalmatians. Various adaptations produced from Disney have been released over the years.
One Hundred and One Dalmatians is the soundtrack to the 1961 animated Disney film of the same name. It was recorded on October 5–6, 1960, and is 56:34 in length. The songs were written by George Bruns and Mel Leven.
Cruella is a 2021 American crime comedy film based on the character Cruella de Vil from Dodie Smith's 1956 novel The Hundred and One Dalmatians. The film was directed by Craig Gillespie with a screenplay by Dana Fox and Tony McNamara, from a story by Aline Brosh McKenna, Kelly Marcel, and Steve Zissis. It is the third live-action adaptation in the 101 Dalmatians franchise and serves as a reboot and an (alternate) origin story for the title character. Emma Stone stars as the title character, with Emma Thompson, Joel Fry, Paul Walter Hauser, Emily Beecham, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, and Mark Strong in supporting roles. Set in London during the punk rock movement of the 1970s, the film revolves around Estella Miller, an aspiring fashion designer, as she explores the path that will lead her to become a notorious up-and-coming fashion designer known as Cruella de Vil.
Events in 1914 in animation.