"Danny Elfman" has been added to your list of bookmarked artists
close
Danny Elfman
May 29, 1953 -
born in Amarillo, TX, composed during the Contemporary period
Biography
Danny Elfman is easily the most successful of those rock musicians who have made the jump to serious film composition. Born Daniel Robert Elfman on May 29, 1953 in Amarillo, Texas and raised in Los Angeles, his mother, Blossom Elfman, was a novelist and later a screenwriter. Elfman was always musically inclined, and while living in France with his brother Richard in the early 1970s, he joined a theatrical company, where he first began learning how to orchestrate. He also spent some time living in Africa, until a bout with malaria forced him to return to the United States in the late 1970s. In 1980, he was asked to write the music for the low-budget horror-fantasy spoof Forbidden Zone, which was directed and co-produced by his brother Richard. This marked more the beginning of a career in rock music for Elfman than in film music -- Forbidden Zone, which didn't see wide release until 1983, never acquired more than a tiny cult audience, but the ensemble that had been assembled by Richard Elfman for the film, The Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo, remained together and achieved a following as a New Wave band under the name Oingo Boingo. Danny Elfman continued with the group as a guitarist, singer, and songwriter for the next few years, establishing himself as a rock musician.
report abuse