Walter Greene was a film and television composer who worked on numerous productions for over 30 years.
Career
Born and raised in Tarkio, Missouri, Greene attended Tarkio College and the Horner Institute for Fine Arts. He toured with and arranged for big bands led by Orville Knapp, Freddy Martin, Horace Heidt, Wayne King, Xavier Cugat, and Harry James. Greene entered the world of film scoring as orchestrating for MGM, with his first films being Two-Faced Woman and Abbott and Costello's Lost in a Harem. He became a composer of music scores for films for the Producers Releasing Corporation studio with his first film being Crime, Inc.. Other PRC films included Lash LaRue Westerns. When LaRue switched studios to Screen Guild and Howco Green continued with the series. He earned an Academy Award nomination in 1946 for his score to the 1945 filmWhy Girls Leave Home. Greene composed other films such as Jesse James' Women, Teenage Doll, The Brain from Planet Arous, Teenage Monster, War of the Satellites and Thunder in Carolina. Greene also provided the score for the CrownInternational Pictures US released of the German/Polish 1960 filmFirst Spaceship on Venus and the Woolner Brothers US release of Hercules and the Captive Women. Greene started his career in scoring cartoons at the Walter Lantz Studio, first credited in the 1963 Greedy Gabby GatorWoody Woodpecker short. Starting with 1967's Hot Time on IceChilly Willy short, Greene would be the sole composer of the Lantz cartoons until the last one, which is 1972's Bye, Bye, Blackboard, in which also would be the final cartoon short with new Greene music. Around 1966, he started providing musical scores for some Pink Pantheranimated shorts, replacing William Lava. Greene's scores were built around "The Pink Panther Theme" composed by Henry Mancini, creating different variations of the famous theme. Unlike the music scores composed by Bill Lava, which were custom made for a specific entry, his compositions were generic and could be reused more freely. He is first credited is in the 19thPink Panther theatrical short, Pink, Plunk, Plink, with his final original music in Pink Panic. From Pink Posies on, he never composed music for other shorts, even though his name his mentioned. This is because most of his cues were reused frequently. His is last mentioned in the Pink Panther short Therapeutic Pink in 1977. Greene also composed musical scores for the 1966 TarzanTV series with some episodes linked together for feature film release and The New Three Stooges. Putting the context of his short-lived contract with DFE, he indirectly recorded some music for six Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies shorts from 1966 to 1967. Those include A Squeak in the Deep, Feather Finger, Swing Ding Amigo, Sugar and Spies, A Taste of Catnip, and Daffy's Diner, all of these are Daffy\Speedy entries.
