The Music Clan of Newman
Many of Disney’s best-known films are musicals. There are, however, several films produced by Disney that are not musicals, yet still have entertaining songs and background scores as non-diegetic elements of the stories, i.e. Toy Story (1995), Monsters, Inc. (2001), and Finding Nemo (2003). For each of those films, Disney has hired a great deal of talented people who have also applied their talents to major Hollywood Blockbuster films as well, and one such person is Randy Newman.
Coming from a family of musicians, Randy Newman was hired by Pixar to compose the music for “Toy Story,” Pixar Animation Studios’s very first collaboration with Disney. Newman received two Academy Award nominations for his work on “Toy Story,” including Best Original Score and Best Original Song, “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.” Thanks to the success of “Toy Story,” Newman was hired by Disney to compose for James and the Giant Peach (1996), which also earned him another Best Original Score Oscar Nomination.
He was rehired by Pixar to score A Bug’s Life (1998), and Toy Story 2 (1999). For “A Bug’s Life,” he received another Best Original Score Oscar Nomination and for “Toy Story 2,” he got a Best Original Song Nomination for the song, “When She Loved Me.” Finally, after a total of 15 nominations (including his nominations for the previous Pixar films, as well as for films like Parenthood (1989), The Paper (1994) and Pleasantville (1998)) Randy Newman won an Academy Award in the category of Best Original Song for the song “If I Didn’t Have You,” from the movie, Monsters, Inc. (2001). He got another nomination that same year for his score for the same film. Newman also scored Cars (2006), The Princess and the Frog (2009), Toy Story 3 (2010), and Monsters University (2013). For “Toy Story 3,” Newman won a second Best Original Song Oscar for the song “We Belong Together.” He is currently attached to score Cars 3 (2017) and Toy Story 4 (2018).
Randy Newman’s cousin, Thomas Newman, has also scored a variety of Disney films. He received Best Original Score Oscar Nominations for scoring Finding Nemo (2003), Wall-E (2008). He also composed for Disney’s recent live-action biopic, Saving Mr. Banks (2013) and this year’s Finding Dory (2016). Thomas Newman was Disney’s original choice to score Wreck-It Ralph (2012), but he was unable to do so due to his commitments with the James Bond film, Skyfall (2012). Unlike his cousin, Thomas Newman never won an Oscar despite a total of thirteen Academy Award Nominations.. He also scored films like The Shawshank Redemption (1994), American Beauty (1999), and A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004).
Thomas Newman’s older brother, David Newman, is another talented composer who has done the music for a variety of Disney films. David Newman scored Frankenweenie (1984) which is a short produced by the studio that was directed by Tim Burton, as well as The Brave Little Toaster (1987), DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp (1990), The Mighty Ducks (1992), and 102 Dalmatians (2000). David Newman earned one Academy Award Nomination for Best Original Score for the movie Anastasia (1997), which was directed by former Disney Animator, Don Bluth. David Newman also scored the beloved sports classic, The Sandlot (1993) and several classic Eddie Murphy films, including The Nutty Professor (1996), Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps (2000), Dr. Doolittle 2 (2001), Daddy Day Care (2003), and Norbit (2007).
Music is a gift that clearly runs in all the Newmans and will continue to do so for years to come. And they each have received some well-deserved accolades for their work. While each of these composers have written music for non-musicals, their music has similar potential to be remembered by the public as music from a musical would. Just like the Sherman Brothers and Alan Menken, the Newmans have written a great deal of memorable music.
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