Henry Mancini

Pictured on a 37¢ USA commemorative stamp issued in his honor, 13 April 2004. The titles of the following films and TV shows, for which Mancini wrote the score and/or songs, are listed on the stamp: Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961); Days of Wine and Roses (1962); Charade (1963); Peter Gunn (1958)'; The Pink Panther (1963); Two for the Road (1967); Touch of Evil (1958); Hatari! (1962); The Great Race (1965); Experiment in Terror (1962); Victor Victoria (1982); Dear Heart (1964) and The Thorn Birds (1983). The Pink Panther cartoon character is in the lower left corner, pointing to Mancini.

Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984.

For Hatari! (1962), he wrote a brief piece of incidental music to accompany a scene where a baby elephant is taken for a walk. To Mancini's astonishment, it became an international hit as "Baby Elephant Walk," and was re-recorded by a large number of artists and in many styles.

No less prolific a recording artist than he was a film/TV composer, his many albums, mostly for RCA, sold in the millions, and included: "Music from 'Peter Gunn'" (1958), "Music from 'Mr. Lucky'" and "The Mancini Touch" (1959), "Combo" and "Mr. Lucky Goes Latin" (1960), "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (1961), "Our Man in Hollywood" and "Charade" (1963), "The Concert Sound of Henry Mancini", "The Best of Mancini" and "The Pink Panther" (1964), "'The Second Time Around' and Other Favorites" (1966), "Mancini '67" and "Encore!: More of the Concert Sound of Henry Mancini" (1967), "A Warm Shade of Ivory" (1968), "Six Hours Past Sunset" (1969), and "Big Screen - Little Screen" (1972). He also had a Number 1 single with "Love Theme from 'Romeo and Juliet'" in 1969.

Success with The Glenn Miller Story (1954) allowed him to score many other films, helping along the way to change the style of film background music by injecting jazz into the traditional orchestral arrangements of the 1950s. He was nominated for 18 Oscars and won four; in addition, he won 20 Grammys and 2 Emmys, made over 50 albums and had 500 works published.

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, but brought up in Pennsylvania, where he played the flute in a local band, as a youth, before sending some arrangements to Benny Goodman. Goodman offered him a job and, after serving in WWII, he joined the rearranged Glenn Miller band. In 1952, he was given a two-week assignment at Universal to work on an Bud Abbott and Lou Costello film and ended up staying for six years.