Biography
Daniele Amfitheatrof (also credited as Daniil Aleksandrovich Amfiteatrov) was a Russian-born composer and conductor who worked extensively in Hollywood. Born in St Petersburg on 29 October 1901, he studied composition at the St Petersburg Conservatory, in Prague and at the Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia in Rome under Ottorino Respighi. He conducted orchestras across Europe before moving to the United States in 1937, where he served as associate conductor of the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra.
From 1939 he established himself as a film composer in Hollywood, scoring more than seventy films for major studios until the mid-1960s. He became a naturalised American citizen in 1944. His credits include Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), Song of the South (1946), Lassie Come Home (1943), Winchester '73 (1950), The Naked Jungle (1954) and Major Dundee (1965). Amfitheatrof received two Academy Award nominations for his scores for Guest Wife (1945) and Song of the South. He later returned to Italy and died in Rome on 7 June 1983.
