Background
Louis Silvers was born on September 6, 1889 in Brooklyn, New York. Little is known of his early life (his parents' names cannot be discovered) save that he began studying the piano at the age of six.
Louis Silvers was born on September 6, 1889 in Brooklyn, New York. Little is known of his early life (his parents' names cannot be discovered) save that he began studying the piano at the age of six.
His father died when Louis was fifteen and he dropped out of Brooklyn's Erasmus High School to help support his family; he was already playing the piano in a local band.
His first important job, conducting the orchestra in a Rockaway Beach vaudeville theater, was a brief engagement; but it led to a long association as orchestra conductor with Gus Edwards, who starred in the show. Edwards, a songwriter and talent scout, produced a series of vaudeville revues, which gave Silvers the invaluable experience of working with such future stars as George Jessel, Eddie Cantor, Bert Wheeler, and Georgie Price.
It was also through Edwards that Silvers met Al Jolson, who played a critical role in his career. After ten years, Silvers left Edwards and began producing vaudeville acts in association with Gene Haver.
He served as musical director of the Friars Club and supervised the production of the annual Friars Frolics, an important Broadway theatrical event of the time. He also produced the annual Hasty Pudding Show for Harvard University and worked with George M. Cohan, abbot of the Friars in 1915-1916.
Silvers' association with Hollywood films came through D. W. Griffith. The first composer to serve as a full-time member of a film-company production staff, he arranged the music for Griffith's productions of Way Down East (1920), in association with William F. Peters; Dream Street (1921); and Isn't Life Wonderful (1924), in collaboration with Cesare Sodero.
These were silent films, and scores were provided with cue sheets so that they could be played by pit musicians.
Silvers' work was singled out because of his inventive use of instruments and his effort to delineate character and heighten emotion, not just to suggest setting and action.
In 1921 Silvers worked as musical conductor of the Broadway production Bombo, starring Al Jolson. Although the score for this Winter Garden extravaganza was written by Sigmund Romberg, songs by others were interpolated during the run of 219 performances. Among these was "April Showers, " written by Silvers to lyrics by Buddy De Sylva.
On its first presentation the song reportedly drew thirty-six curtain calls. It became a Jolson standard and remains Silvers' most memorable song. As a result of his friendship and work with Jolson, Silvers created the score and conducted the 107-piece orchestra for The Jazz Singer (1927).
The first full-length feature to employ sound for dialogue and background music, the film received a special award for Warner Brothers at the first Academy Awards ceremony. Because of this success Silvers won a three-year contract as musical director of Warner Brothers, during which time he worked again with Jolson on The Singing Fool (1928) and Sonny Boy (1929). He also conducted the orchestra for such famous films as Disraeli (1929) and Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929).
His subsequent move to Columbia Pictures involved Silvers in scoring and serving as musical director for two more award-winning films, the classic It Happened One Night (1934) and One Night of Love (1934), for which Silvers himself won an Academy Award. It was the first year in which the academy gave formal recognition to music in film-making.
Joining Twentieth Century-Fox in 1936, Silvers was music director for Lloyds of London and a number of Shirley Temple pictures. For thirteen years, even as he labored in the film studios, he also served as musical director of Lux Radio Theatre. In the summer of 1943 he collaborated with Buddy De Sylva, then production manager of Paramount Pictures, to create a variant of This Is the Army for the Royal Canadian Army.
Silvers died in Hollywood, California.
Silvers was married three times. His first wife, Janet, died in a fire; he was divorced from his second wife, whose name was La Vonne; and in March 1950 he married Betty Myers.