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Russell Garcia (born 12 April 1916) in Oakland, California, but a long time resident of New Zealand...

Russell Garcia (born 12 April 1916) in Oakland, California, but a long time resident of New Zealand, is a composer who has written a wide variety of music for screen, stage and broadcast. Self-taught, his break came when he substituted for an ill colleague on a radio show. Subsequently, he went on to become composer/arranger at NBC Studios (for such shows as Rawhide and Laredo), MGM and Universal Studios and later movies like the George Pal, MGM films, The Time Machine (1960 film) and Atlantis, the Lost Continent, as well as his orchestrated themes for Father Goose and The Benny Goodman Story. He collaborated with many musical and Hollywood stars - Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Anita O’Day, Mel Torme, Julie London, Oscar Peterson, Stan Kenton, Maynard Ferguson, Walt Disney, Orson Welles, Jane Wyman, Ronald Reagan, Andy Williams, Judy Garland, Henry Mancini, and Charlie Chaplin doing arrangements and conducting orchestras as needed. One of five brothers, he grew up in what he says was an “ordinary” household where music was something that came out of the radio. When his family noticed the five-year-old Russ standing by the radio every Sunday morning waiting for the New York