Monty Norman

Monty Norman ( Noserovitch; 4 April 1928 – 11 July 2022) was a British film score composer and singer. A contributor to West End musicals in the 1950s and 1960s, he is best known for composing the "James Bond Theme", first heard in the 1962 film Dr. No. He was an Ivor Novello Award and Olivier Award winner, and a Tony Award nominee.

Early life Monty Norman was born on 4 April 1928 in Stepney in the East End of London. His father, Abraham Noserovitch (anglicised to Norman), was a Jewish cabinet maker who immigrated to the United Kingdom from Latvia when he was a child; his mother, Ann (Berlyn), who was also Jewish, worked as a seamstress. His mother gave him his first guitar (a Gibson) when he was sixteen. Harry Secombe, Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, Harry Worth, and Bob Hope, and Expresso Bongo (which Time Out called the first rock and roll musical). Expresso Bongo, written by Wolf Mankowitz, was a West End hit and was later made into a 1960 film starring a young Cliff Richard. Barry later claimed that it was actually he who wrote the theme, but Norman won two different libel actions refuting Barry's claim that he was the composer, the last against The Sunday Times in 2001. In the made-for-DVD documentary Inside Dr. No, Norman performed a music piece that he wrote for an unproduced stage musical based on A House for Mr Biswas several years earlier, entitled "Bad Sign, Good Sign", that he claimed resembles the melody of the "James Bond Theme" in several places. for the use of the theme since Dr. No.

Musicals

Make Me an Offer (1958) Belle or the Ballad of Dr. Crippen (1961) Stand and Deliver (1972)