He is a five-time Academy Award-nominated composer and has written the music for some of the most important film and television themes of our time.
So I’m kind of when George Fenton CBE said to me, “It would have been the greatest accomplishment of my life to be in a progressive rock band. In fact, I almost was. “
Fenton grew up in the 1960s and first rose to fame at the age of 18, when he played guitar in a progressive rock band Whistler.
Their 1969 album made little noise and they had already broken up by the time they scored a posthumous number one hit in Sweden with a track from The Beatles’ Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.
Rock ‘n’ roll had been George’s first love ever since he saw Johnnie Ray cry on TV: “The darkroom, the captive audience, and then the acting. That’s where the enthusiasm lies, and I feel it when I do it. “I’m writing for a movie.
You can hear it on Fenton’s most prominent movie soundtracks. From the epic soundtracks of two of the most prominent films of the 1980s, Gandhi and Cry Freedom, to the magical laughter of Groundhog Day and the lighthearted and funny You’ve Got a Mail.
He describes himself as a visual composer: “I started writing music in the theater; I’ve been very aware of the role that music plays in relation to other elements. And he admits he struggles to find inspiration “without a visual symbol in my head. “The same goes for the dozens of hit TV shows he’s written for: from Bergerac to Omnibus, from Telly Addicts to Newsnight.
However, he proves that his most complicated task is to write the jingle for Radio 4’s daily PM program.
“I had written things that didn’t have a visual image, but the PM jingle would make me sit at home thinking, what am I supposed to have in mind?I don’t think all songwriters have it. I tend to need to invest in it.
She grew up investing time in artistic and engaging pursuits, she says.
Born George Hawes in Bromley, Kent, in 1949, he replaced his call to Fenton (his mother’s inaugural call) in 1968 to get his equity card, as there was already a G. Hawes.
His father, one of five children, was a mechanical engineer. His mother, a dancer, had become a nurse during the war. At home, she played the piano while her father, a fan of the jazz big band, accompanied her on drums.
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“My father’s ambition was for me to be England in rugby and my mother’s ambition was for me to be a wonderful actor. I don’t forget my father telling me, “I would like you to do anything I could do at some point in your life. “I’ll just help you. “
His paternal great-grandfather, an orchestra conductor who sang as a chorus girl at the funeral of the 1st Duke of Wellington.
He says, “I also sang in church and played organ, so I had a wonderful combination of music and other wonderful people who taught me. “
George acquired his first electric guitar at the age of seven. “At a time when music had become more important than football, the Beatles had a huge influence on me. “
Privately educated at St Edward’s in Oxford, the alma mater of actors Laurence Olivier and Emilia Clarke, he disappointed his parents by refusing to go to university. There’s a feeling at the end
The 1960s that we may just be playing with. Life is cheap: you can rent an apartment for next to nothing and live in central London.
After a series of dead-end jobs, he discovered himself “almost by chance” applying for director Carl Davis in 1968, in Alan Bennett’s play Forty Years On, in which he played a small role.
In the mid-1970s he played a recurring role as Private Martin Gimbel at Emmerdale Farm. “I gave that impression on some things,” he laughs. But to say I acted is a bit of an exaggeration. “
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George worked as a consultant musician, chauffeur and music letter writer, the latter of which enabled him to write the music for a 1974 production of Twelfth Night for the RSC, directed by Peter Gill.
“Peter gave me my first job in television and opened Riverside Studios as a theater. “
He was introduced to young director Michael Attenborough Gill’s 1978 production of The Cherry Orchard’s Riverside: “He said, ‘I was given the task of making a recording of your music and playing it to my dad. ‘
His father is Sir Richard Attenborough, who later introduced him to Fenton to co-create the score for his next film, the 1982 multi-Oscar-winning classic, Gandhi.
“I just walked through the open doors,” Fenton happily insists.
“All I wanted was to not be part of the normalcy – I didn’t need a normal job. “
An avalanche of film and television music has secured his reputation, including Dangerous Liaisons, The Fisher King and Shadowlands, playing with directors such as Nora Ephron, Stephen Frears, Nicholas Hytner and in 18 films through Ken Loach. The praise poured in, too. Five Oscar nominations, 3 Baftas, two Emmys, 3 Golden Globe nominations, two Grammy nominations, five Ivor Novellos and five BMI awards.
“I’ve never taken a commission because I think it’s a stepping stone for me.
“I just did the things I wanted to do for one reason or another. That’s why I came back from the United States at that time.
In the 1990s, the foreign fortune of television shows for which he had composed music, such as An Englishman Abroad and The Jewel In The Crown, earned him a highly prized prestige in Hollywood: “I presented paintings for the rest of my life. I thought, ‘I’m not sure I need to write music for Father Of The Bride Part 12. ‘”
But a call from nature documentarian Alastair Fothergill presented a way out. “He said, ‘I’m doing something I’d like you to write the music for. ‘”
It’s the blue planet.
“I hung up the phone and thought, ‘That looks good. ‘
“So I gave up the film I was going to make and went back to London, much to the chagrin of my American agent. “
Now 74 years old, has he ever thought about composing just for himself?
“Yes, I rarely flirt with that idea and there are some things I intend to do that way.
“If someone brought me dinner every night, and they left me in the morning and after a walk on the lawn I sat down and wrote during the day, I can believe that those ambitions would take hold of me.
“But living in London and getting paid all the time, I don’t think I’m in the right area to do that. “
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