Biography

Composer, conductor, jazz musician (he played both piano and trombone), and arranger Walter Ernst Baumgartner was born on November 16, 1904 in Sevelen, Kanton St. Gallen, Switzerland. Walter founded the swing band the Magnolians in 1934. Baumgartner worked for a while as an arranger and was the conductor of an orchestra prior to composing the score for his first film in 1952. A furiously prolific composer in the late 1960's and throughout the 1970's, Walter frequently worked for producer/director Erwin C. Dietrich and provided some especially groovy scores for a handful of exploitation movies made by legendary Spanish maverick Jesús Franco. Baumgartner was married to actress and singer Helen Vita. Walter died at age 92 on October 3, 1997. He was survived by his wife and two sons.
- IMDb mini biography by: woodyanders

Walter Baumgartner, a Swiss composer born in 1904 in Sevelen, studied literature in Paris and musical composition at the Zurich University of the Arts (with Volkmar Andreae). Not content to be a scholar and an artist Baumgartner was an athlete as well and represented Switzerland at the European University Championships in Rome. In 1934, he founded the swing orchestra The Magnolians with saxophonist Eddie Brunner. In 1935, the Zurich school created a jazz class that Baumgartner ran until 1947. He also worked for the cabaret (Alfred Rasser, 1942, Geiler/Morath, Rainer/Walther) and Radio-Zurich. For the cinema, he wrote scores from 1944 onward (more than fifty documentary shorts as well as all of the Gloriafilm feature films). In 1956, he married the actress Helen Vita with whom he had two sons (director of Photography Peter Baumgartner is his nephew). In the 1960s, he wrote various musicals for Karl Suter. Walter Baumgartner died in Zollikerberg in 1997 at the venerable age of 92 years after a rich and full life)
- IMDb mini biography by: Guy Bellinger

He was the uncle to cinematographer and producer Peter Baumgartner.