Early life and education
Bernstein was born in New York City on April 4, 1922, into a Jewish family. His mother, Selma (Feinstein), had roots in Ukraine, and his father, Edward Bernstein, came from Austria-Hungary. A precociously artistic child, he danced, acted, painted, and played piano, and he appeared on Broadway as Caliban in a production of The Tempest. He attended Manhattan's progressive Walden School.2
At the age of 12 he won a piano scholarship and began studying under Henrietta Michelson, a teacher at the Juilliard School, with the goal of becoming a concert pianist; he gave an early recital at New York's Steinway Hall. Michelson encouraged his interest in composition and arranged for the young Bernstein to be evaluated by Aaron Copland, who in turn steered him toward the teacher Israel Citkowitz. Over the following years he studied composition with figures including Copland, Roger Sessions, and Stefan Wolpe. During World War II he was drafted into the United States Army Air Forces, where he arranged and wrote music for Armed Forces Radio.2
Career
Bernstein's film-scoring career began in the early 1950s at Columbia Pictures, where he worked on pictures including the film noir Sudden Fear (1952). The McCarthy era nearly ended it before it started: having written reviews for a left-wing publication and having declined to name names, he was caught up in the era's political censure. Bernstein later characterized his treatment with a wry line, saying he was not important enough to be blacklisted and so was placed on a "gray list" instead. During that lean stretch he scored low-budget B-movies such as Robot Monster and Cat-Women of the Moon (both 1953).2
His fortunes turned when major directors looked past the gray list. Otto Preminger hired him for the jazz-inflected score to the addiction drama The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), which brought Bernstein his first Academy Award nomination, and Cecil B. DeMille engaged him to write hours of symphonic music for the Biblical epic The Ten Commandments (1956). The breakthrough launched one of the most celebrated runs in film music. Bernstein composed the rousing main theme of The Magnificent Seven (1960), later adopted for decades of Marlboro cigarette advertising, and the delicate, childhood-evoking score for To Kill a Mockingbird (1962).1 Other signature works of the period include The Great Escape (1963), Hud (1963), and True Grit (1969).2
Beginning in the late 1970s, Bernstein became a fixture of American screen comedy after director John Landis recruited him for National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). He went on to score Airplane! (1980), Stripes (1981), Trading Places (1983), and Ghostbusters, lending broad comedies a straight-faced orchestral grandeur. In his final decades he formed a lasting partnership with director Martin Scorsese, scoring Cape Fear (1991), The Age of Innocence (1993), and Bringing Out the Dead (1999), and he earned his final Oscar nomination for Todd Haynes's Far from Heaven (2002). Across his career he wrote scores for more than 150 films along with dozens of television productions, and he also worked on Broadway, composing the musicals How Now, Dow Jones (1967) and Merlin (1983).2
Bernstein was nominated for the Academy Award 14 times across six consecutive decades, from the 1950s through the 2000s, and won once, for the score of the musical comedy Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967). His other honors included an Emmy Award for The Making of the President 1960 (1963), several Golden Globe wins, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, dedicated in 1996.2
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters (1984)
Bernstein composed and conducted the orchestral score for Ghostbusters, the underlying instrumental music that runs beneath the film. This is distinct from the Ghostbusters soundtrack album of pop and rock songs, though two pieces of Bernstein's music were also carried over onto the soundtrack release.
Reitman approached Bernstein about the project months before filming began, hiring him before the cast was assembled, an unusually early commitment for a film composer. Bernstein worked with a fairly consistent ensemble of around 72 musicians and recorded the score at the Burbank Studios. To orchestrate the music he brought in his son, Peter Bernstein, alongside David Spear.
While the score is fundamentally a large symphonic work, Bernstein folded in period electronics, using three Yamaha DX-7 synthesizers and the Ondes Martenot, an early French electronic instrument. Because so few musicians played the Ondes Martenot, he engaged a specialist player from England to perform it. The result paired a traditional orchestra with eerie electronic colors that suited the film's blend of comedy and horror.
Bernstein was openly skeptical of the film's use of rock and roll. He disliked the inclusion of the song "Magic" by Mick Smiley and did not believe it helped the picture. He declined to return for the sequel, Ghostbusters II, reportedly because he did not want to be typecast as a composer of comedies; that film's score was instead written by Randy Edelman.
Score releases
Bernstein's Ghostbusters score, long unavailable as a standalone release, has appeared in several editions over the years:3
- Ghostbusters: The Score (Lincoln, 1998), a 59-minute limited-edition promotional pressing.
- Ghostbusters: Original Motion Picture Score (Varése Sarabande, March 16, 2006), a roughly 69-minute commercial release, credited as "Music Composed and Conducted by Elmer Bernstein."
- Ghostbusters: Original Motion Picture Score (Sony Classical, June 7, 2019), running about 61 minutes in its U.S. edition and 66 minutes in its Japanese edition.
Personal life
Bernstein married three times. His third marriage, to Eve Adamson in 1965, lasted nearly four decades until his death. He was the father of four children, among them the composer Peter Bernstein, who orchestrated the Ghostbusters score alongside his father, as well as Gregory, Emilie, and Elizabeth, and he had five grandchildren. After years based in the Santa Barbara area, he spent his later life in Ojai, California.2
Death
Bernstein died on August 18, 2004, at his home in Ojai, California, after a lengthy battle with cancer. He was 82.4 He was survived by his wife, Eve, his four children, and five grandchildren.2
References
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
