---
name: "Alex North"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/alex-north"
roles: ["Composer"]
born: "4 December 1910"
died: "8 September 1991"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 1
average_over: 1
updated: "2026-09-17T20:14:41.809307+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Alex North

Composer. Born 4 December 1910 in Chester, Pennsylvania, USA. Died 8 September 1991.

## Details

- **Work:** Composer
- **Born:** 4 December 1910, Chester, Pennsylvania, USA
- **Died:** 8 September 1991
- **Also known as:** Isadore Soifer
- **Elsewhere:** https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q349448, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006218/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/10536

## Biography

Alex North (born Isadore Soifer) was an American composer of film, theatre and concert music. Born in Chester, Pennsylvania, he studied at the Curtis Institute and Juilliard before training in Moscow; he was the first American admitted to the Union of Soviet Composers.

North's film career began with the jazz-inflected score for *A Streetcar Named Desire* (1951). He went on to score *Spartacus* (1960), *Cleopatra* (1963), *Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?* (1966), *The Misfits* (1961), *Dragonslayer* (1981) and *Prizzi's Honor* (1985), among many others. He received fifteen Academy Award nominations but no competitive wins; in 1986 he became the first composer awarded an Honorary Oscar. He also composed the song 'Unchained Melody' (1955).

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (1)

- *Prizzi's Honor* (1985), Fi1m 82, Music — [page](https://film.one/film/prizzis-honor.md)

## Also known for

- *Good Morning, Vietnam* (1987), Original Music Composer
- *Spartacus* (1960), Original Music Composer
- *A Streetcar Named Desire* (1951), Original Music Composer
- *Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?* (1966), Original Music Composer
- *Cleopatra* (1963), Original Music Composer
- *The Misfits* (1961), Original Music Composer, Conductor
- *The Children's Hour* (1961), Original Music Composer, Conductor
- *Dragonslayer* (1981), Original Music Composer

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/alex-north