QUOTE FROM CRAIG FERGUSON: When referring to Don Cheadle turning 50 and now he’s old enough to get a colonoscopy, Craig said it would be a good thing – they’d make a movie of it, put block lettering on it, and have a score written by Danny Elfman!! (Rumor has it that Mr. Elfman lived in Evergreen for awhile).
Daniel Robert “Danny” Elfman (born May 29, 1953) is an American composer, record producer, and actor. He is known as the lead singer and songwriter for the rock band Oingo Boingo, from 1976 to 1995 and later for scoring music for television and film and creating The Simpsons’ main title theme as well as the 1989 Batman movie theme. He has scored the majority of his long-time friend Tim Burton’s movies.
Elfman re-entered the film industry in 1976, initially as an actor. He made his film scoring debut in 1980 for the film Forbidden Zone directed by his older brother Richard Elfman. He has since been nominated for four Academy Awards and won a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media for Tim Burton’s Batman and an Emmy Award for his Desperate Housewives theme. Elfman was honored with the Richard Kirk Award at the 2002 BMI Film and TV Awards. The award is given annually to a composer who has made significant contributions to film and television music.
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In 1985, Tim Burton and Paul Reubens invited Elfman to write the score for their first feature film, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure. Elfman was apprehensive at first because of his lack of formal training, but with orchestration assistance from Oingo Boingo guitarist and arranger Steve Bartek, he achieved his goal of emulating the mood of such composers as Nino Rota and Bernard Herrmann. In the booklet for the first volume of Music for a Darkened Theatre, Elfman described the first time he heard his music played by a full orchestra as one of the most thrilling experiences of his life. Elfman immediately developed a rapport with Burton and has gone on to score all but two of Burton’s major studio releases: Ed Wood which was under production while Elfman and Brton were having a serious disagreement, and Sweeney Todd. Elfman also provided the singing voice for Jack Skellington in Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas and the voices of both Barrel and the “Clown with the Tear-Away Face”. Years later he provided the voice for Bonejangles the skeleton in Corpse Bride.
Burton has said of his relationship with Elfman: “We don’t even have to talk about the music. We don’t even have to intellectualize – which is good for both of us, we’re both similar that way. We’re very lucky to connect” (Breskin, 1997).