Disney Film Score Composer Paul Smith Dies
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Paul Joseph Smith, a composer best known for his scorings of many of Walt Disney’s most memorable films, died Jan. 25 in Glendale of complications from Alzheimer’s disease.
Smith was 78. In 1940, with Leigh Harline and Ned Washington, he shared an Academy Award for the music from “Pinocchio.” Smith produced the award-winning score and Harline and Washington wrote the songs.
He also was nominated for Oscars for “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “Cinderella,” “Song of the South,” “Saludos Amigos” and “The Three Caballeros.”
Smith attended UCLA and the Bush Conservatory of Music in Chicago, and began a long affiliation with the Disney studios in 1930. He retired in 1962.
Over the years, he wrote the scores for most of the Disney nature films, including “Beaver Valley,” “Nature’s Half Acre,” “Bear Country,” “Secrets of Life” and “The Vanishing Prairie.”
He is survived by a daughter, Theresa Colesworthy; a son, Jerome Smith; three brothers; five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
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