Alex North’s Troubles With Oscar

Film composer Alex North has been nominated for Academy Awards 15 times in a career that began in 1952 with “A Streetcar Named Desire.” But the only Oscar he has to show for it is the honorary one given to him in 1986 for “his brilliant artistry in the creation of memorable music for a host of distinguished motion pictures.”

The 78-year-old North, who is locked in a bitter dispute with the music branch of the academy, believes he was given the honorary Oscar because there was such an outcry within the branch over the rejection of his 1985 score for John Huston’s “Prizzi’s Honor.”

North’s score for “Prizzi’s Honor,” which utilized melodies from Italian operas as source material, was deemed ineligible for the best original score category and since there is no longer an “adaptation score” award (it was dropped in 1984), there was no place in the competition for North’s work--even though, as many people believed, it may have been the best score written that year.

When North submitted his score for Huston’s last film, “The Dead,” which had echoes of period Irish folk music in it, the nominations committee kicked it back, too. In a letter to North’s agent, music branch executive committee chairman John Addison said it was determined that “the score is primarily an adaptation of other composers’ music and is therefore ineligible. . . .”

Addison recited music awards rule A-1--”an original score is a substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring originating with the submitting composer(s)”--and ended his letter with “I am sure that Alex, like the rest of us, is willing to accept the decision of his peers in good grace.”

North said he was not willing to accept the decision in good grace and suggested that lyricists, music editors and others in the branch “take a course in functional music.”

“Since when is a score not accepted as ‘original’ if the composer has used indigenous folk tunes as the course of composition. . . ? After endless hours of researching Irish folk tunes and ancient music of Ireland, it’s pretty obvious that my score was not an adaptation of other composers’ music.”

In a subsequent letter, Addison altered his assessment of North’s score for “The Dead,” saying he had chosen his words badly and should have said it was an “adaptation of folk material.” North didn’t like that description any better, since the word adaptation is being used in a way that is both inaccurate and demeaning.

Fellow composer Fred Steiner agrees with North.

“If you’re a musician or a composer, you know very well that even though you’re using melodies that aren’t your own . . . you’re still doing a substantial amount of serious work . . . in changing that music to fit the requirements of a picture,” Steiner said. “It takes more or less the same amount of work whether you’re using your own melody or someone else’s.”

Steiner said more and more composers are being asked by directors to adapt music. For “Prizzi’s Honor” and “The Dead,” Huston and North had agreed on the approach, which was intended to flavor the stories with Italian opera and Irish folk with authentic accents.

“Why aren’t these kinds of scores not considered eligible?” Steiner said. “If the academy doesn’t accommodate this, many fine scores will be ineligible.”

The music branch dropped the adaptation score award three years ago, saying that there were not enough serious adaptation scores each year to justify the category. North doesn’t object to having just one score award, he just thinks it should consider all scores submitted.

North wrote a score for a second 1987 film, “Good Morning, Vietnam.” Even the rigid elders of the music branch would have found it substantially original, he said.

Unfortunately, a secretarial snafu delayed the cue sheets and submission forms and North had a third straight score rejected. This time, for missing the deadline.