Career
Born George Martin Stoll, he was also later credited as George East. Stoll (sometimes without the middle initial). Stoll made his musical debut as a boy violin prodigy, gaining nationwide fame. He toured North America as a jazz violinist on the Fanchon and Marco Vaudeville circuit and was part of the Jazzmania Quintet, appearing with Edythe Flynn in an early 1927 sound short.
In San Diego, he became an orchestra and trio leader (his Rhythm Aces) and started to feature with Jack Oakie on radio programs, such as Camel Cigarette and National Broadcasting Company"s Shell Oil Program.
In 1934, Bing Crosby selected Stoll as his musical director for the second series of the Columbia Broadcasting System Woodbury radio programs Bing Crosby Entertains. Foreign Decca, Georgie Stoll and His Orchestra accompanied Crosby and Louis Armstrong in the successful 1936 recordings of Pennies from Heaven.
Stoll and his orchestra appeared on screen the same year in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer"s Swing Banditry. In 1937, he joined the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer music department and was the musical director (frequently conductor too) for titles such as Honolulu, Ice Follies of 1939 and the Rooney-Garland hit Babes in Arms.
He conducted the stage band which toured with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney upon the release of The Wizard of Ounces
He was given a single "Ruby Slipper" by Judy Garland upon completion of the Wizard of Oz (where he orchestrated the tornado and Wicked Witch"s Castle escape scenes with George Bassman). At the studio Stoll worked frequently with the director Edward Buzzell and producers Arthur Freed, Roger Edens and Joe Pasternak. He was also a favorite pinochle-playing buddy of studio head Louis B. Mayer.
Stoll kept his connection with the jazz world and visited clubs looking for rising talent.
He recruited one of the first black arrangers at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Calvin Jackson with whom he worked on the original music for his 1945 Oscar-winning score for the Kelly-Sinatra Anchors Aweigh. Stoll also encouraged the teenaged André Previn and used him to write many arrangements.
In 1943, he conducted Garland through the first two of her Decca original cast albums from her popular movies, such as Girl Crazy and Meet Maine in Saint Louis, which included the hit single The Trolley Song (#3 on Billboard"s Best Selling charts). His other recordings were quite eclectic: spanning the popular (often with harmonica virtuosoes Leo Diamond or Larry Adler), easy listening orchestral (eg Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer"s Hollywood Melodies album) to the postwar American sessions of the tenor Lauritz Melchior.
After 9 Oscar nominations (last in 1962 for Billy Rose"s Jumbo), Stoll retired upon completing the original music for the Ann-Margret vehicle Made in Paris.
In September 2001, Stoll"s Best Score Oscar was offered in an estate sale at the Butterfields auction house. The actor Kevin Spacey later revealed that he anonymously secured it for $156,875 and subsequently returned it to the Academy. In October 2009, Stoll"s Amati violin was sold by Tarisio Auctions for $620,000, the current world record for a Nicolo Amati sold at auction.