James Bond composer David Arnold to present award to Don Black at Thunderball 40th Anniversary event
20-Oct-2005 • Event
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One of the most popular and successful young British composers, David Arnold was born in Luton and through Danny Cannon, another Lutonian, got his first professional directing job scoring The Young Americans, starring Harvey Keitel and Viggo Mortensen.
Since then David Arnold has become one of the British film industry's most talented and respected players, switching seamlessly from the orchestral grandeur on movies such as Stargate (1994), Independence Day (1996) - for which he received a Grammy award , to more scaled down urban grooves and beats on films such as Shaft (2000), Enough , Changing Lanes (2002) and 2Fast 2Furious (2003).
Also, and perhaps more significantly, David Arnold is the man who has succesfully taken over from John Barry as the composer for the world famous James Bond movies, having written the music for Tomorrow Never Dies (1997) The World is Not Enough (1999) and Die Another Day (2002) ... and next year David will score the latest Bond adventure, Casino Royale - released in November 2006.
Don Black, who won an Oscar for Born Free and collaborated with John Barry on Out of Africa and Dances With Wolves, is responsible for penning five James Bond theme songs: Thunderball, Diamonds Are Forever, The Man With The Golden Gun, Surrender from Tomorrow Never Dies and The World Is Not Enough.
This will be a very rare chance to meet such an iconic figure from the film industry, in what is turning out to be one of the biggest 007 film reunions ever.
Other celebrity guests who have confirmed include actresses Martine Beswicke and Mollie Peters, stuntman/actor George Leech, production designer Sir Ken Adam, actor Earl Cameron, and and sound editor Norman Wanstall â with more to be announced.
The Thunderball 40th Anniversary screening will be held at Cine Lumiere, London on Sunday November 20th 2005.
Click here for more information how to attend this once-in-a-lifetime James Bond event and to book tickets.
About Don Black
Don started out as a stand-up comedian and blames himself entirely for the death of Variety. He made his West End debut as a lyricist with composer John Barry on the musical Billy, starring Michael Crawford (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane).
Don received two Broadway Tony Awards for best book and best lyrics of a musical for his work on Sunset Boulevard. This marked his third theatrical collaboration with Andrew Lloyd Webber. They first joined forces to write the song cycle Tell Me On A Sunday, which was developed to form the basis for the stage show Song & Dance. They were reunited for Aspects of Love. Don also wrote the love duet Next Time You Fall In Love, for the re-vamped Starlight Express.
In a career that has won him many glittering prizes (an Oscar for his song Born Free, five Academy Award nominations, three Tony nominations, five Ivor Novello Awards, a Golden Globe and many platinum, gold and silver discs) he has worked with some of world's leading composers Jule Styne, Henry Mancini, Quincy Jones, Elmer Bernstein, Michel Legrand, Marvin Hamlisch, Charles Aznavour, etc. Among his many popular songs are Michael Jackson's Ben and Lulu's To Sir With Love, both U S. number one hits.
His most recent musicals are the Andrew Lloyd Webber produced Bombay Dreams which recently completed a two year London run and will soon start an American tour. Dracula, the musical he wrote with Christopher Hampton is currently playing in Europe. A biography, Wrestling With Elephants, was published last year by Sanctuary. He is currently working on a musical to be produced in Shanghai and is also working on a new version of Bar Mitzvah Boy, a musical he wrote with Jule Styne, for the Paper Mill Theatre in New Jersey.
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