Biography
Leith Stevens was an American composer and conductor of radio and film scores. Born in Mount Moriah, Missouri, he was a child prodigy pianist who studied at the Juilliard School. He began his professional career as an arranger and conductor for CBS radio in the 1930s, later becoming head of the network's music department.
Stevens composed scores for many films, including Winchester '73 (1950), Destination Moon (1950), When Worlds Collide (1951), The War of the Worlds (1953), The Wild One (1953) and The Hitch-Hiker (1953). He was a founding member and first president of the Composers and Lyricists Guild of America. From 1960 he taught a course on film scoring at the University of California, Los Angeles. He received three Academy Award nominations.
