Louis "Lou" Silvers was an American film score

Film score

A film score is original music written specifically to accompany a film, forming part of the film's soundtrack, which also usually includes dialogue and sound effects...

 composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 whose work has been used in more than 250 movies. In 1935, he won an Academy Award for Best Original Score for One Night of Love

One Night of Love

One Night of Love is a 1934 romantic musical film set in the opera world, starring Grace Moore and Tullio Carminati. It was written by James Gow, S.K. Lauren and Edmund H. North, from the story, Don't Fall in Love, by Charles Beahan and Dorothy Speare...

.

Early life and career

Born in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, Silvers scored a D. W. Griffith

D. W. Griffith

David Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance .Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera...

 film with sound sequences Dream Street

Dream Street (film)

Dream Street is a silent movie directed by D. W. Griffith, and starring Carol Dempster, Charles Emmett Mack, and Ralph Graves in a story about a love triangle set in London, and based on two short stories by Thomas Burke, "Gina of Chinatown" and "Song of the Lamp"...

(1921) and the part-talking feature film

Feature film

In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...

 The Jazz Singer

The Jazz Singer (1927 film)

The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American musical film. The first feature-length motion picture with synchronized dialogue sequences, its release heralded the commercial ascendance of the "talkies" and the decline of the silent film era. Produced by Warner Bros. with its Vitaphone sound-on-disc system,...

(1927). He was also music director for Lux Radio Theater

Lux Radio Theater

Lux Radio Theater, a long-run classic radio anthology series, was broadcast on the NBC Blue Network ; CBS and NBC . Initially, the series adapted Broadway plays during its first two seasons before it began adapting films. These hour-long radio programs were performed live before studio audiences...

for most of its long run (1934–1955). He is also the composer of "April Showers" (1921).

Personal life and death

Silvers was married to Janet Adair

Janet Adair

Janet Adair was an actress in 5 movies and contralto member of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company's choir from August to December 1926. She was born on January 7, 1901 in Chamlee, Louisiana and died on October 1, 2005 in Sarasota, Florida...

. On March 26, 1954, Silvers died of a heart ailment

Congenital heart defect

A congenital heart defect is a defect in the structure of the heart and great vessels which is present at birth. Many types of heart defects exist, most of which either obstruct blood flow in the heart or vessels near it, or cause blood to flow through the heart in an abnormal pattern. Other...

 in Hollywood, California

Hollywood, Los Angeles, California

Hollywood is a famous district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema...

.

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Result	Category	Film
1935	Academy Award	Won	Best Music, Score	One Night of Love One Night of Love One Night of Love is a 1934 romantic musical film set in the opera world, starring Grace Moore and Tullio Carminati. It was written by James Gow, S.K. Lauren and Edmund H. North, from the story, Don't Fall in Love, by Charles Beahan and Dorothy Speare...
1938		Nominated	Best Music, Score	In Old Chicago In Old Chicago In Old Chicago is a 1937 American drama film directed by Henry King. The screenplay by Sonya Levien and Lamar Trotti was based on the Niven Busch story, "We the O'Learys." The film is a fictionalized account about the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and stars Alice Brady as Mrs. O'Leary, the owner of...
1939		Nominated	Best Music, Original Score	Suez Suez (film) Suez is a 1938 film account of the building of the Suez Canal by Ferdinand de Lesseps, played by Tyrone Power. It was so highly fictionalized that de Lesseps' descendants sued for libel....
1940		Nominated	Best Music, Scoring	Swanee River Swanee River (film) Swanee River is a biopic about Stephen Foster, a songwriter from Pittsburgh who falls in love with the South, marries a Southern girl, then is accused of sympathizing when the Civil War breaks out...

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