George Stoll

Musical director, conductor, composer and jazz violinist (7 May, 1905, Minneapolis, MN - 18 January, 1985, Monterey, CA). Stoll is associated with the Golden Age of MGM musicals and performers from the 1940s to 1960s. In 1937, he joined the MGM music department as musical director (frequently conductor too) for titles such as "Honolulu," "Ice Follies of 1939" and "Babes in Arms." He conducted the stage band which toured with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney upon the release of "The Wizard of Oz." At the studio, Stoll worked frequently with the director Edward Buzzell and producers Arthur Freed, Roger Edens and Joe Pasternak. He recruited one of the first black arrangers at MGM, Calvin Jackson, with whom he worked on the original music for his 1945 Oscar-winning score for "Anchors Aweigh." Stoll also encouraged the young André Previn and had him write many arrangements. Many of Stoll's recordings were quite eclectic: spanning recordings for Judy Garland, the popular (often with harmonica virtuoso Leo Diamond or Larry Adler), easy listening orchestral (e.g. MGM's Hollywood Melodies album) to the postwar American sessions of the tenor Lauritz Melchior. He was hired with his old colleague George Sidney to work with Elvis Presley on some of his later pictures (e.g. "Viva Las Vegas" and "Spinout"). After 9 Oscar nominations (his last in 1962 for Billy Rose's "Jumbo"), Stoll retired upon completing the original music for "Made in Paris."