Oscar-winning composer best known for ‘M*A*S*H’ theme
JOHNNY MANDEL | Nov. 23, 1925 - June 29, 2020
Johnny Mandel, who composed and arranged for some of the leading big bands of the 1940s and ’50s before establishing himself as a writer of memorable movie scores and themes like “The Shadow of Your Smile,” “Emily” and “Suicide Is Painless,” died Monday at his home in Ojai, Calif. He was 94.
His daughter, Marissa, confirmed the death.
Mr. Mandel was for many years a journeyman jazz trumpeter and trombonist, a reliable member of any band’s brass section but not an outstanding soloist. He found his calling when he branched out into arranging.
His arrangements were heard on Sid Caesar’s groundbreaking 1950s television series “Your Show of Shows” and on the first recordings Frank Sinatra made for Reprise, the record company founded by the singer in 1960. He wrote a Grammy-winning new arrangement (based on Nelson Riddle’s original one) of the Nat King Cole hit “Unforgettable” for the record that, through overdubbing, posthumously reunited Cole with his daughter Natalie.
The most lasting chapter in his musical career began in 1958, when he began writing for Hollywood.
His lush theme songs for the 1964 film “The Americanization of Emily” (“Emily”) and for 1965’s “The Sandpiper” (“The Shadow of Your Smile,” which won both an Academy Award and a Grammy Award for song of the year) are probably better remembered now than the movies themselves. His jarringly serene “Suicide Is Painless” became the theme of both the film “M*A*S*H” (1970) and the subsequent long-running TV version. Among the many other movies he scored were “The Last Detail” (1973), “Caddyshack” (1980) and “The Verdict” (1982).
In an interview with the website JazzWax in 2008, Mr. Mandel attributed his success as a film composer to his years writing for, among other things, Las Vegas floor shows. He recalled his experience on the first picture he scored, the Susan Hayward film noir “I Want to Live!” (1958), based on a true story, as unexpectedly harmonious.
“When I started on ‘I Want to Live!’ I realized, heck, where have I been all my life?” he said. “I’ve been writing and arranging by the clock and catching sight cues for dancers for years. I just put the two together and was able to do movies.” His score was one of the first to make extensive use of jazz.
Even after he was established in Hollywood, Mr. Mandel maintained a parallel career as an arranger for many well-known singers. He arranged Sinatra’s first Reprise album, “Ring-a-Ding-Ding!” and worked with Tony Bennett, Barbra Streisand, Peggy Lee, Rickie Lee
Jones, Diana Krall and even Michael Jackson. He arranged several of the tracks on “Unforgettable,” the 1991 album of songs associated with Natalie Cole’s father that reinvigorated her career.
His approach, he explained to The New York Times in 1992, had as much to do with composing as arranging: “I always reharmonize everything. I like to leave singers alone and go where they’re not.”
In addition to winning an Academy Award and five Grammys, Mr. Mandel was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2010 and recognized as a Jazz Master, the nation’s highest honor for a jazz artist, by the National Endowment for the Arts the next year.
John Alfred Mandel was born on Nov. 23, 1925, in Manhattan. His father, Alfred, worked in the garment district, and his mother, Hannah, had aspired to be an opera singer.
His father’s clothing store, Mandel & Cash, foundered during the Depression, and the family moved to Los Angeles in 1934.
Although he, his mother and sister moved back to New York after his father died three years later, his time in California was pivotal for Mr. Mandel. When he was 11, a cousin came to visit while touring as a drummer with the bandleader Harry Reser, sparking a fascination with music that would last a lifetime.
A number of leading jazz musicians had Mandel tunes in their repertoires — Stan Getz recorded “Hershey Bar,” Chet Baker recorded “Tommy Hawk,” and “Not Really the Blues” was a staple of the Woody Herman band’s book — but he did not have a hit song until he collaborated with Johnny Mercer on “Emily” in 1964.
Other lyricists who worked with Mr. Mandel included Paul Francis Webster (“The Shadow of Your Smile,” “A Time for Love”); Paul Williams (“Close Enough for Love”); and, most unusually, Mike Altman, the teenage son of the M*A*S*H director Robert Altman. Mike Altman wrote the words for “Suicide Is Painless,” Mr. Mandel told JazzWax, after the elder Altman tried writing them himself but decided, “I can’t write anything nearly as stupid as what we need.”
Mr. Mandel married Lois Lee in 1959, but the couple separated after two years. In 1970, he married Martha Blanner, who died in December. He is survived by their daughter, Marissa Mandel.