Danny Elfman

DANNY ELFMAN has earned numerous honors, including a Grammy Award ®, an Emmy Award ® and four Academy Award ® nominations. In 1998, he was honored with dual Oscar ® nominations for Best Original Score for his work on Barry Sonnenfeld‘s Men in Black and Gus Van Sant‘s Good Will Hunting. He received his third Oscar nomination for the score for Tim Burton‘s acclaimed fantasy Big Fish. Elfman earned his other Oscar nomination for his score for the acclaimed biopic Milk, directed by Gus Van Sant.

Elfman has worked extensively with Tim Burton, on the live-action Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the stop-motion animated film Corpse Bride. Their previous collaborations include Alice in Wonderland, Planet of the Apes, Sleepy Hollow, Mars Attacks!, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice, Pee-Wee‘s Big Adventure, and both Batman and Batman Returns.

In all, Elfman has composed more than 60 motion picture scores for a variety of directors, including Gus Van Sant, Sam Raimi, Ang Lee, Taylor Hackford, Errol Morris, Rob Marshall, Brett Ratner, Guillermo del Toro, Wayne Wang, Timur Bekmambetov, Barry Sonnenfeld, Brian De Palma, Peter Jackson, The Hughes Brothers, Richard Donner, Jon Amiel, Martin Brest, and Warren Beatty.

Elfman has worked on films of every genre, including Spider-Man (1&2), Men in Black (1&2), To Die For, A Simple Plan, Mission: Impossible, Family Man, Wanted, Hellboy II: The Golden Army, Charlotte‘s Web, Dick Tracy, Darkman and Chicago.

For television, Elfman won an Emmy Award ® for his theme for the hit series Desperate Housewives, and was also Emmy-nominated for his theme for The Simpsons, which is the longest-running primetime comedy series ever.

A Los Angeles native, Elfman got his first experience in performing and composing at the age of 18 for the French theatrical troupe Le Grand Magic Circus. The following year, he collaborated with his brother Richard, performing musical theatre on the streets of California. Elfman then worked with a surrealistic musical cabaret for six years, using the outlet to explore multifarious musical genres.

For 17 years he wrote and performed with rock band Oingo Boingo, producing such hits as Weird Science and Dead Man‘s Party.

His first composition for ballet Rabbit and Rogue had its American Ballet Theatre (ABT) World Premiere at The Metropolitan Opera House at New York‘s Lincoln Center in June 2008. The ballet was choreographed by Twyla Tharp and commissioned by ABT.

Elfman‘s other film credits include the comedy Taking Woodstock, directed by Ang Lee, and McG‘s Terminator: Salvation.

© Disney Enterprises, Inc. All Rights Reserved