Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin

 Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin (May 10, 1894 – November 11, 1979)

Classically trained in St. Petersburg, Russia before the Bolshevik Revolution, he moved to Berlin and then New York City after the Russian Revolution. In 1929, after the stock market crash, he moved to Hollywood, where he became best known for his scores for Western films, including Duel in the Sun, Red River, High Noon, The Big Sky, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and Last Train from Gun Hill. Tiomkin received twenty-two Academy Award nominations and won four Oscars, three for Best Original Score for High Noon, The High and the Mighty, and The Old Man and the Sea, and one for Best Original Song for "The Ballad of High Noon" from the former film. Although influenced by European music traditions, Tiomkin was self-trained as a film composer. He scored many films of various genres, including historical dramas such as Cyrano de Bergerac (1950), The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), and Great Catherine (1968); war movies such as The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell (1955), The Guns of Navarone (1961), and Town Without Pity (1961); and suspense thrillers such as 36 Hours (1965). Tiomkin also wrote scores for four of Alfred Hitchcock's suspense dramas: Shadow of a Doubt (1943), Strangers on a Train (1951), I Confess (1953), and Dial M for Murder (1954). In addition to the cinema, Tiomkin composed for television, including such memorable theme songs as Rawhide (1959) and Gunslinger. He also composed the music to the song "Wild Is The Wind". It was originally recorded by Johnny Mathis for the film Wild Is the Wind (1957). He was married three times, and had one child. Dimitri Tiomkin died in London, England in 1979. He is interred at Forest Lawn-Glendale.