Biography
John Leipold was an American film and radio score composer. Born John Max Leipold on 26 February 1888 in Hunter, New York, he began his career conducting vaudeville and light opera in New York before serving as music director for the Al G. Field Minstrels. In 1928 he moved to Hollywood and joined Paramount Studios' music department, initially working as a librarian and later contributing music and arrangements to hundreds of films, most uncredited.
His credited work includes the score for Duck Soup (1933). In 1939 he shared the Academy Award for Best Original Score for Stagecoach with Richard Hageman, W. Franke Harling and Leo Shuken. He scored numerous westerns for Harry Sherman Productions between 1939 and 1942, and from 1942 composed and conducted primarily for CBS, including work on Three Stooges films. Leipold died on 8 March 1970 in Dallas, Texas.
