Mancini, Henry

Mancini, Henry

 orig. Enrico Nicola Mancini

(born April 16, 1924, Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.—died June 14, 1994, Beverly Hills, Calif.) U.S. composer. While serving in the army air force during World War II, he met Glenn Miller, and after the war he joined Miller's band as an arranger and pianist. He first gained wide attention with his jazz-inflected music for the television series Peter Gunn (1958), but he is perhaps best known for his humorous scores for Blake Edwards's Pink Panther movies. He worked extensively with Edwards throughout his career. He wrote scores for more than 80 films and won four Academy Awards for two songs—“Moon River” and “Days of Wine and Roses”—and for the film scores for Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) and Victor/Victoria (1982). He also won 20 Grammy Awards and 2 Emmys.

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Mancini, Henry (1924–94) composer; born in Cleveland, Ohio. In the late-1940s and 1950s he was a pianist-arranger for the Glenn Miller band, a Hollywood arranger, and a composer for television dramas. With lyricist Johnny Mercer he wrote the Oscar-winning standards "Moon River," for the film Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) and the title song for Days of Wine and Roses (1962). He wrote the well-known score for The Pink Panther (1964) and won an Oscar for Victor/Victoria (1982).