Daniel Robert "Danny" Elfman
(born May 29, 1953) is an American
musician, best known for composing music for
television and movies, and leading the rock band Oingo Boingo as singer/songwriter from 1976
until its breakup in 1995. He is a frequent collaborator
with long-time friend
Tim Burton, and has
scored all but two of his films. He was nominated for four
Academy Awards and won a
Grammy Award for Tim Burton's
Batman and an
Emmy Award for his
Desperate Housewives theme. Elfman
also wrote the theme for the
video game
Fable. He is also famous
for creating
The Simpsons main title
theme, and his role as
Jack
Skellington's singing voice in
The Nightmare Before
Christmas. He is the Uncle in-law to actress
Jenna Elfman.
Early life and career
Elfman was
born in Los Angeles,
California
, the son of Blossom
Elfman (née Bernstein),
a writer and teacher, and Milton Elfman, a teacher who was in the
Air Force.
Elfman
grew up in a racially mixed community in the Baldwin
Hills
area of Los Angeles. He spent much of his time in the local
movie theatre, adoring the music of such film composers as
Bernard Herrmann and
Franz Waxman.
After
dropping out of high school, he followed his brother Richard to France
, where he
performed with Le Grand Magic
Circus, an avant-garde musical
theater group. Violin in tow, Elfman next journeyed to
Africa where he traveled through Ghana
, Mali
, and
Upper Volta, absorbing new
musical styles, including the Ghanaian highlife genre which would eventually influence his
own music. Elfman contracted
malaria
during his one-year stay and was often sick. Eventually he returned
home to the United States, where his brother was forming a new
musical theater group,
The Mystic
Knights of the Oingo Boingo. The group performed the music for
Richard's debut feature film,
Forbidden Zone. Danny Elfman composed
his first score for the film and played the role of
Satan. By the time the movie was completed, they had
taken the name
Oingo Boingo and begun
recording and touring as a rock group.
Elfman and Tim Burton
In 1985,
Tim Burton and
Paul Reubens invited Elfman to write the
score for their first feature film,
Pee-wee's Big
Adventure. Elfman was apprehensive at first because of his
lack of formal training, but with orchestration assistance from
Oingo Boingo guitarist and arranger
Steve
Bartek, he achieved his goal of emulating the mood of such
composers as
Nino Rota and
Bernard Herrmann. In the booklet for the
first volume of
Music for a Darkened Theatre, Burton
described the first time he heard his music played by a full
orchestra as one of the most thrilling
experiences of his life. Elfman immediately developed a rapport
with Burton and has gone on to score all but two of Burton's major
studio releases:
Ed Wood,
scored by
Howard Shore, which was under
production while Elfman and Burton were having a fight, and
Sweeney
Todd, an adaptation of the 1979
Stephen Sondheim Broadway musical.
Burton has said of his relationship with Elfman: "We don't even
have to talk about the music. We don't even have to intellectualize
– which is good for both of us, we're both similar that way. We're
very lucky to connect" (Breskin, 1997).
Musical influences
He recalls that the first time he became aware of film music was in
his youth during a screening of
The Day the Earth
Stood Still (
Robert Wise,
1951). The music was by
Bernard
Herrmann, and that, he has said, was where his love of film
music began (Russell and Young, 2000). Elfman purposefully nodded
towards Herrmann's
The Day the Earth Stood Still score in
Tim Burton's
sci-fi spoof
Mars Attacks!
Other film composers have also proven to be influential, such as
Nino Rota and
Erich Wolfgang Korngold, the former
in Elfman's playful music for
Pee-wee's Big Adventure, the
latter in his much grander work,
Batman. Sometimes his music has a
distinctly
Russian feel, inspired by
the likes of
Prokofiev,
Stravinsky and
Tchaikovsky’s
ballet music, while his frequent use of
choirs reflects his love of choral music by
the likes of
Mozart and
Carl Orff.
Jazz and
rock influences from his earlier career
are evident in such films as
Chicago and
To Die For.
Hearing damage
When asked during a 2007 phone-in interview on
XETRA-FM if he ever had any notions of performing
in an
Oingo Boingo reunion, Elfman
immediately rejected the idea and stated that in the last few years
with the band he had begun to develop significant and irreversible
hearing damage as a result of his
continuous exposure to the high noise levels involved in performing
in a
rock band. He went on to say that he
believes his hearing damage is partially due to a
genetic predisposition to hearing loss, and that he
will never return to the stage for fear of worsening not only his
condition but also his bandmates'.
Recent works
Elfman has recently started working in the classical world,
beginning with
Serenada
Schizophrana for the
American Composers Orchestra.
It was
conducted by John Mauceri on its
recording and by Steven Sloane at its premiere at Carnegie Hall
in New York
City
on February 23, 2005. After its premiere, it
was recorded in studio and released onto
SACD on October 3, 2006. The meeting with
Mauceri proved fruitful as the composer was encouraged then to
write a new concert piece for Mauceri and the Hollywood Bowl
Orchestra. Elfman composed an "overture to a nonexistent musical"
and called the piece "The Overeager Overture."
References in popular culture
In the animated TV show
Family Guy, they
did a spoof of Episode 4 of the
Star Wars
Trilogy:
Blue Harvest.
Chris (as
Luke Skywalker) returns
home to discover that his home has been destroyed and his aunt and
uncle killed by Imperial forces. He then notices that along with
them that John Williams and the London Symphony Orchestra have also
been slaughtered. Luke is only concerned with Williams' death,
which he remarks to himself, "Great, now we got to do the rest of
this thing with Danny Elfman" and the screen pans to show Danny
Elfman in front of an orchestra, as he conducts a frenetic
polka-style score (in the style of "The Simpsons" theme). Chris
listens to the music for a few moments and then cuts off Danny
Elfman's head with his
lightsaber, and
the music stops.
In
Blizzard Entertainment's
MMORPG
World of Warcraft, players
can find an undead character named "Daniel Ulfman". Standing beside
him are other members from
Oingo
Boingo.
Personal life
Elfman has three children, Lola, Born in 1979, Mali, born in 1986,
and Oliver, born in mid-January 2005. On November 29, 2003, Elfman
married film actress
Bridget
Fonda.
Filmography
This is a list of films where Elfman appears as an actor, or with
Oingo Boingo:
This is a list of films with scores composed by Elfman:
He has also written the theme music for several
television series, including:
His other work includes:
- 2004: The opening title theme of the 2004 video game
Fable.
- 2008: Soundtrack to the 2008 video game Lego Batman: The Video Game
(various tracks from the soundtrack of the movie: Batman).
- 2008: The opening title theme as well as major themes of the
2008 video game Fable II.
- 2009: The opening title theme as well as major themes and
soundtrack of the 2009 video game Wanted: Weapons of Fate.
Awards and nominations
| Award |
Wins |
Nominations |
| Academy Awards |
0 |
4 |
| Annie Awards |
0 |
1 |
| BMI Film & Television Awards |
24 |
24 |
| British Academy Film Awards |
0 |
1 |
| Broadcast Film Critics Association Awards |
0 |
2 |
| Chicago Film Critics Association Awards |
0 |
4 |
| Emmy Awards |
1 |
2 |
| Golden Globe Awards |
0 |
2 |
| Grammy Awards |
1 |
10 |
| Phoenix Film Critics Society Awards |
0 |
1 |
| Satellite Awards |
1 |
6 |
| Saturn Awards |
5 |
12 |
| Sierra Awards |
1 |
2 |
| World Soundtrack Awards |
0 |
2 |
| Total |
33 |
73 |
References
- Danny Elfman Biography (1953-)
- Danny Elfman 's Music For A Darkened People: Danny
Elfman in L.A. Times
- Fanfare Article
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