William Axt


William Axt was an American composer of nearly two hundred film scores.

Life and career

Born in New York City, Axt graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in The Bronx and studied at the National Conservatory of Music of America. He earned a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Chicago in 1922. He studied in Berlin under Xaver Scharwenka.
Axt made his American debut as a conductor on December 28, 1910.
He served as an assistant conductor for the Hammerstein Grand Opera Company and was a musical director for the Capitol Theatre in Manhattan before joining the music department at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1929.
Axt retired from the film industry to raise cattle and breed horses in Laytonville, California. He died in Ukiah, California, and had at least one son.

Selected filmography

Theodora The Prisoner of Zenda Greed The Big Parade Ben-Hur The Merry Widow La Bohème Don Juan The Scarlet Letter Camille The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg Our Dancing Daughters Show People The Trail of '98 White Shadows in the South Seas A Woman of Affairs The Duke Steps Out The Flying Fleet The Kiss The Last of Mrs. Cheyney Madame X Our Modern Maidens Where East Is East A Free Soul Private Lives Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise) Faithless Grand Hotel The Mask of Fu Manchu The Washington Masquerade The Wet ParadeBroadway to Hollywood Clear All Wires! Dinner at Eight Eskimo Gabriel Over the White House Hell Below Penthouse The Secret of Madame Blanche Sons of the Desert Storm at Daybreak Reunion in Vienna Forsaking All Others Manhattan Melodrama Men in White Operator 13 Sadie McKee The Thin Man Tarzan and His Mate A Wicked Woman You Can't Buy Everything Buried Loot, shortRendezvous David Copperfield Libeled Lady Tarzan Escapes We Went to College Beg, Borrow or Steal London by Night Parnell Under Cover of Night Everybody Sing Woman Against Woman Yellow Jack Sergeant Madden Tarzan Finds a Son! Tell No Tales Untamed Little Nellie Kelly Tarzan's Secret Treasure