COMPOSER MIKLOS ROZSA DIES AT 88

July 28, 1995

LOS ANGELES -- Miklos Rozsa, 88, a composer of dramatic and classical-tinged film scores who won three Academy Awards -- for "Spellbound" in 1945, "A Double Life" in 1947 and "Ben Hur" in 1959, died July 27 at a hospital here after a stroke. He had myasthenia gravis, a nerve and muscle disorder.
He also was nominated for an Oscar for the 1946 film "The Killers." Part of the score later was used as the theme for the TV show "Dragnet," prompting a successful lawsuit.
Mr. Rozsa scored about 100 films, his last being the 1982 comedy "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid." His work incorporated Hungarian folk melodies, but somehow, "he turned that into music that convinced you he was writing about American cities or the time of the Bible," said John Mauceri, musical director of the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra.
Mr. Rozsa, who was born in Budapest and played the violin by age 5, was in London in 1937, for a production of the "Ballet Hungaria" he had written, when he was approached to score a Marlene Dietrich film, "Knight Without Armour."
The producer, Alexander Korda, was also Hungarian, and for the next three years, Mr. Rozsa scored his films in London. World War II forced him and the production of "Thief of Baghdad" to Hollywood in 1940.
Along with fellow composers Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Bernard Herrmann, who predominated in Hollywood in the 1930s and 1940s, he wrote lush, stirring scores influenced by European classical music.
He was a favorite of Billy Wilder's, collaborating on "Five Graves to Cairo" (1943), "Double Indemnity" (1944), "The Lost Weekend" (1945), "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" (1970) and "Fedora" (1978).
After specializing in psychological dramas of the 1940s, he moved into historical epics such as 1950's "Quo Vadis," "Ivanhoe," "Julius Caesar," "Knights of the Round Table" and the 1961 Charlton Heston film "El Cid."
His other works included "Madame Bovary," "The Four Feathers," the 1942 version of the "Jungle Book," "So Proudly We Hail," "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers" (1953), "Lust for Life," "The Golden Voyage of Sinbad" and "Last Embrace."
Mr. Rozsa also composed 45 non-film pieces, ranging from piano concertos to orchestral pieces. His autobiography, "A Double Life," was published in 1982.
Survivors include two children; a sister; and three granddaughters.