The Phantom of the Opera

Roy Budd (1947-1993) was a jazz pianist and composer who wrote the soundtrack scores for more than 50 films. He is best known for his score for the 1971 film Get Carter, starring Michael Caine. Perhaps his most ambitious project was one completed shortly before his death. He had loved the 1925 silent film The Phantom of the Opera since he was a child and had always dreamed of writing music for the iconic film. In 1993, he did just that, completing his monumental, romantic, anguished score. Just weeks before the composition’s scheduled premiere at the Barbican, he died from a brain hemorrhage at the tragically early age of 46, and the performance was cancelled. His widow, Sylvia, dedicated herself to making sure that the project would come to fruition, and the score was eventually first performed live in 2017 at the London Coliseum.

Roy Budd the musician was entirely self-taught and was hailed as a child prodigy. During his teens he developed a taste for jazz and formed the Roy Budd Trio, with bassist Pete Morgan and drummer Chris Karan. On leaving school at the age of 16, he embarked on a professional career as a jazz pianist.

In 1970, Budd made his debut in the world of film music, but this was achieved in rather unusual circumstances. Hearing that director Ralph Nelson was looking for an English composer for his controversial film Soldier Blue (1970), he was so keen to get the assignment, he put together a tape consisting of music composed by such greats as Jerry Goldsmith, John Williams, Max Steiner, Dimitri Tiomkin and Lalo Schifrin, and sent it off to Nelson, with the claim that it was all his own work. Shrewdly, he didn't pick any of these composer's main themes, in case of arousing the director's suspicion, and, not surprisingly he got the job. Apart from the main theme, which he based on Buffy Sainte-Marie's hit song of the same title, he composed all the music required for the film. 

The acclaim with which his score for Soldier Blue was greeted led to many more opportunities in the genre, and the following year he was able to score another six films. The first of these, Flight of the Doves (1971), was, like Soldier Blue, directed by Ralph Nelson. Next up was the score for a film which has since become something of a cult. Written and directed by Mike Hodges, Get Carter (1971) starred Michael Caine, John Osborne and Ian Hendry in a violent story of a London-based racketeer aiming to avenge his brother's death at the hands of Northern gangsters. Budd's music admirably suited the mood of the film, particularly his main theme, which incorporated the sounds of Caine's train journey to Newcastle. The film's budget reputedly allowed only 450 pounds for the score, but he overcame this restriction by using only three musicians, including Budd himself playing electric piano and harpsichord simultaneously. 

Budd's innovative method of using the film's sound effects to complement his music, continued with Zeppelin (1971), the story of an attempt by the British to steal the secrets behind the infamous German airship. On this occasion, Budd took advantage of the distinctive sound of the zeppelin's diesel-powered engine to introduce his own stirring main theme. When producer Euan Lloyd signed him to score the western Catlow (1971), it proved to be the start of an enduring relationship. Catlow was the first of six films he made with Lloyd, followed by Paper Tiger (1975), The Wild Geese (1978), The Sea Wolves (1980), The Final Option (1982) and Wild Geese II (1985).

During the 1970s, he also scored the films The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins (1971), Something to Hide (1972), Fear Is the Key (1972), The Stone Killer (1973), The Destructors (1974), The Black Windmill (1974), and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977). 

Moving on to the eighties, his film work included the scores for Mama Dracula (1980) and Field of Honor (1986). Returning to his first love, he played regular jazz gigs in London and arranged for and accompanied such artists as Bob Hope, Tony Bennett, Charles Aznavour and Caterina Valente in concerts all around the world. 

Famously, the "Man of a Thousand Faces" had very few words to say about his private life. He once told Screen Secrets magazine that he generated more publicity by being silent about his past than if he were more vocal. How appropriate, considering Lon Chaney was a world-famous silent film star renowned for his lead roles in The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera. Although he may not have talked much about it, Chaney’s roots in the Pikes Peak Region of Colorado ran deep — his experiences growing up there influenced his choice of career and shaped his talent.

Lon Chaney’s maternal grandparents, John and Mary Kennedy, had three children: Emma (his mother), Mattie, and son Orange; all three of whom were born with hearing loss. John Kennedy established the Mute Asylum in Baldwin City, Kansas, in 1864 and served as the Steward of the Olastic Asylum before arriving in Colorado in 1873. The next year, he established what would become the Colorado School for the Deaf and the Blind (CSDB). With a $5,000 appropriation from the Colorado Territorial Legislature, the facility opened in a small house on Cucharras Street before a building site of 10 acres was donated by General William Jackson Palmer’s Colorado Springs Company. Three of the 13 students enrolled for the 1874-75 school term were the children of founder Jonathan Kennedy.

Lon’s father Frank Chaney was born in on April 3, 1852, in Carroll, Ohio. He lost his hearing after contracting typhoid fever at the age of four. Lon’s mother, Emma Kennedy was born on October 13, 1855 in Lawrence, Kansas, and had hearing loss since birth. As author Michael Blake has stated, in addition to providing educational and vocational opportunities for students, the CSDB “served as a magnet for social activities for all of the city’s deaf community.” After meeting at the school, Frank and Emma were married in her parent’s home on December 5, 1877.

Lon attended several elementary schools and stated he had a “reasonably happy” childhood. He played sports and had many friends. However, in 1893 his mother Emma became bedridden with inflammatory rheumatism after the birth of her last child George. Lon dropped out of fourth grade to care for her and his younger siblings. As biographer Blake describes, “It was here that Lon began to develop the talent that later won him praise as one of the great mimes of the silent screen. For three years, Lon took care of his mother in the silence of her bedroom, relaying the events of the day to her…Using every dramatic technique he could invent, Lon mimicked his friends and neighbors at play and work, and even performed an occasional skit. Through this daily ritual Chaney’s talent of pantomime, with his graceful movements and his expressive hand gestures, began to grow and take shape.”

As his siblings grew older, Lon went to work to help support the Chaney Family. During the summer months he worked as a tour guide on Pikes Peak, and was often employed as a wallpaper hanger and carpet layer by Brown’s Wall Paper and Paint Company on North Tejon. Chaney was introduced to the inner workings of theater through his older brother John, who was a stage hand and later stage manager at the Colorado Springs Opera House. Young Lon worked there as a “prop boy,” and stage hand, occasionally appearing as an “extra.” According to grandson Ron Chaney, Lon first took the stage in a production titled The Little Tycoon, which he co-wrote with his brother John. The show traveled around the country and Lon went with it.

By 1910, Lon Chaney was living and working in Los Angeles. After a public scandal involving his wife Cleva Creighton, Chaney left stage acting for work in the silent film industry. Starring in over 150 films, he became a Hollywood legend. For his craft Chaney underwent tremendous physical suffering, binding his feet to his thighs behind him to play an amputee in The Penalty, and wearing a 50lb artificial hump on his back for The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He also mastered the art of stage makeup. He famously transformed into any character — completely unrecognizable from himself. In fact, despite being one of the biggest movie stars of the era, Lon Chaney could walk the streets of any major city incognito. Throughout it all, he never forgot his friends and family in Colorado Springs. In 1925 he held a special screening of The Phantom of the Opera for the students at the CSDB. One of the brightest stars ever to emerge from Colorado Springs, April is officially “Lon Chaney Month.” In 1986, the theater at the Colorado Springs City Auditorium was renamed in his honor. 

Bio courtesy of the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum