Composer. Considered one of the giants of Hollywood movie music, he did memorable work in all kinds of films, and is best-known for his westerns, where his expansive, style had its greatest impact. Tiomkin received 22 Academy Award nominations and won the Oscar four times: two (Best Score and Best Song) for "High Noon" (1952), and for the scores of "The High and the Mighty" (1954) and "The Old Man and the Sea" (1958). His other classic credits include: "Lost Horizon" (1937), "You Can't Take It With You" (1938), "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" (1939), "Only Angels Have Wings" (1939), "The Westerner" (1940), "Meet John Doe" (1941), "Shadow of a Doubt" (1943), Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" World War II (WWII) documentary series (1943 to 1944), "Dillinger" (1945), "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946), "Duel in the Sun" (1946), "Red River" (1948), "Portrait of Jennie" (1948), "Champion" (1949), "Home of the Brave" (1949), "D.O.A." (1950), "The Men" (1950), "Cyrano de Bergerac" (1950), "Strangers on a Train" (1951), "The Well" (1951), "The Thing from Another World" (1951), "The Big Sky" (1952), "I Confess" (1953), "Blowing Wild" (1953), "Dial M for Murder" (1954), "Land of the Pharaohs" (1955), "The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell" (1955), "Giant" (1956), "Friendly Persuasion" (1956), "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" (1957), "Night Passage" (1957), "Wild Is the Wind" (1957), "Rio Bravo" (1959), "Last Train from Gun Hill" (1959), "The Alamo" (1960), "The Sundowners" (1960), "The Unforgiven" (1960), "The Guns of Navarone" (1961), "Town Without Pity" (1961), "55 Days at Peking" (1963), "Circus World" (1964), "The Fall of the Roman Empire" (1964), "36 Hours" (1964) and "The War Wagon" (1967). He also co-wrote the theme song for TV's "Rawhide." Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin was born in Kremenchuck, Ukraine, and studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He launched a career as a concert pianist after fleeing the Russian Revolution in 1918. In 1928, he gave the European premiere of George Gershwin's "Concerto in F," with the composer in attendance. Around this time, he settled in the United States and became naturalized in 1937. A shrewd businessman, Tiomkin worked as a free-agent at studios ranging from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) to Columbia Pictures and Warner Bros. to Monogram, fought for better pay and residuals for musicians, and chose only projects that he found stimulating. Like his contemporary Max Steiner, he had a weakness for brass-heavy bombast that at times threatened to overpower the images he was scoring; but he had a greater melodic gift and more convincingly assimilated American idioms into his essentially European musical language. His music for "High Noon" changed the way Hollywood movies were scored. The title ballad he wrote for it with lyricist Ned Washington, "Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin'," was sung by Tex Ritter and artfully used as a refrain throughout the action, touching off a theme song craze that eventually led to the pop-oriented soundtracks of today's films. Tiomkin himself contributed to this trend by including songs in most of his subsequent scores. For his last film, the U.S.-Soviet co-production "Tchaikovsky" (1971), he not only adapted the music but directed and produced. He spent his last years in London. His many international awards include being named a Chevalier of France's Legion of Honor. In 1999, the United States Postal Service issued a first-class stamp in Tiomkin's honor.