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Conductor Leonard Slatkin shares his early memories of growing up on the soundstages of Hollywood…<\/strong><\/p> A black sedan pulls up to the security gate at the Fox Studio Lot. I lean out the window and give the guard my name. He instructs me to head to the Alfred Newman Scoring Stage. It\u2019s 12 June 2024, and I am about to experience d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu in real time…<\/p> More than 70 years have passed since I first set foot on the hallowed soundstage where so many musical memories were made. My father, Felix Slatkin, was lead violin<\/a><\/strong> of the 20th Century Fox Studio Orchestra<\/a><\/strong> from the late 1930s until the early \u201950s. Alfred Newman was head of the music department, responsible for composing and conducting<\/a><\/strong> most of the films during that golden era. I will never forget my very first LP \u2013 the soundtrack to the biblical epic The Robe<\/em>, one in a series of guaranteed box-office bonanzas. What a fantastic score by Alfred, who kindly autographed a copy of the album for me.\u00a0<\/p> Dad would take me to recording sessions in what is still the world\u2019s most extraordinary recording facility. There, at age eight, I met Marilyn Monroe while she was shooting How to Marry a Millionaire <\/em>in 1953. On another occasion two years earlier, I witnessed the recording of Bernard Herrmann<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s inventive score to The Day the Earth Stood Still<\/em>. During that session, my father was the first to use an electric violin in a film. I remember him playing the instrument in one room and hearing the sound emerge in an adjacent studio. \u00a0<\/p>Leonard Slatkin: early days with Alfred Newman at 20th Century Fox…<\/h2>
Meeting Marilyn Monroe and Bernard Herrmann<\/h2>