- Born
- Died
- Birth nameJosef Zmigrod
- Allan (or Josef as he was then) studied under the great pioneering modernist Arnold Schönberg. To pay for his tuition he composed popular, jazz-influenced tunes for cabaret acts in Berlin. Josef took his pseudonym from Oscar Wilde's narcissistic hero, Dorian Gray.
- IMDb mini biography by: Steve Crook <steve@brainstorm.co.uk>
- He had a musical education by Arnold Schönberg before he wrote first compositions for stage performances of Max Reinhardt.
- By 1943 he had established himself in the British film industry, composing for London Films and other major studios before joining Powell and Pressburger to score many of their best-known Archers Film Unit productions, including The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), A Canterbury Tale (1944), I Know Where I'm Going! (1945) and A Matter of Life and Death (1946), the Prelude of which was recorded on a 78 disc and later reissued on EMI CD.
- He was friendly with another émigré musician, the conductor Walter Goehr, who conducted some of his film scores, and for a while taught his son, the composer Alexander Goehr.
- He studied philosophy in Heidelberg and later Berlin, where he composed a children's opera, Wavelength ABC.
- Gray became a naturalized UK citizen on 29 January, 1947.
- The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1944) - £500
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