October 30 - Paul J. Smith

On this day, in 1906, composer Paul J. Smith was born in Calumet, Michigan. By the time Paul graduated from high school, the family had moved to Caldwell, Idaho where his dad, Joseph, was a professor at the College of Idaho. Not surprisingly, Paul spent three years studying music at that very same college. The boys in the family all turned out to be pretty musical. Joseph composed several songs for the college, Paul's brother Arthur became a studio musician and played on the soundtracks of all kinds of movies and television shows and Paul himself became a legend.

In 1925, Paul moved on from the College of Idaho to attend the Bush Conservatory of Music in Chicago, Illinois. While there, his talent earned him a scholarship to Julliard but for some reason he never used it. After graduating from Bush, Paul would spend two years teaching at Elmhurst College. In 1932, he moved to Los Angeles, California to go back to school at UCLA. This time he majored in English and wrote four musical comedies during his time there.

When Paul landed a job at the Disney Studio in 1934, he hit the ground running. He loved to push the boundaries of scoring animation just as much as Walt loved to push the boundaries of the animation itself. After composing for some shorts, Paul co-wrote the music for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs with Frank Churchill and Leigh Harline. He would continue this pattern of scoring some shorts then creating music for a feature film over and over for the next few decades. All told, Paul wrote the score for over 70 of Disney's shorts. His feature credits include Pinocchio (which earned him an Academy Award), Fantasia, Bambi, Saludos Amigos, The Three Caballeros, the animated portions of Song of the South, Fun and Fancy Free, Melody Time, So Dear to My Heart, and Cinderella.

About the time of Cinderella's release, the studio began producing its Tru-Life Adventure series of animal documentaries. Paul would score most of them, using the same techniques that he used to compose music for animation. Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston would later acknowledge that those films became immeasurably better because of Paul's innovative scores. Throughout the Fifties and early Sixties, Paul would move into scoring many of the studio's live action classics. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Shaggy Dog, Pollyanna, Swiss Family Robinson, and The Parent Trap are just a few of the movies that benefited from Paul's touch.

In 1962, after 28 years with the Disney studio, Paul officially retired from the company but not from making music. He scored 26 episodes of Leave It to Beaver and 35 episodes of the Wonderful World of Color. He's even credited with some of the background music in a special celebrating Donald Duck's 50th birthday in 1984. On January 25, 1985, Paul passed away at the age of 78 due to complications brought on by Alzheimer's Disease. In 1994, for all his marvelous musical contributions, he was made an official Disney Legend.

Also on this day, in American history: John J. Loud