As reported last month, when the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opened in mid-city Los Angeles in September 2021, Dimitri Tiomkin’s 1955 Academy Awards acceptance speech was chosen for inclusion in the Academy Awards History gallery. The television broadcast of March 30, 1955, brought the Oscar-winning composer into American’s homes and turned him into a television celebrity.

Within months, Tiomkin was booked for guest appearances on two television programs, You Bet Your Life, hosted by Groucho Marx, and The Johnny Carson Show.

A year later, on a 1956 episode of What’s My Line?, the first contestant is “Mr. X” who’s line is…”Oscar” Winning Composer. Of that episode, Tiomkin’s publicist wrote, “a panel of ‘What’s My Line’ experts failed to identify the line of Dimitri Tiomkin, which is composing music for movies. If he had hummed a few bars from one of his theme songs–“Do Not Forsake Me” from “High Noon” or the Whistling Song from “The High and the Mighty,” say–he would have given himself away.”

That same publicist shared the composer’s view on the topic of compensation, deadlines, and dignity [unrelated to television].

Dimi doesn’t believe the contribution made by music can be measured in percentages. Nothing infuriates him more than [a] producer saying, for example, “Music will help this picture 5%.”

 “When this happens,” Dimi snorts, I sat, ‘All right, give me 5% of the budget.’ On $3,000,000 picture, of course, that would be $150,000. Naturally, I don’t get it. Yet I am expected to cover up all of picture’s mistakes – in three weeks or less.

“My fight,” he concludes, hands upturned, “is just for certain amount of dignity. Not only for composer, but for all artists responsible for picture.”

Tiomkin’s subsequent 1950s television appearances include The Eddie Fisher Show, This Is Your Life, and 77 Sunset Strip.

Dimitri Tiomkin on This Is Your Life, 1959

For more information, see Tiomkin on TV.

Sources

“Biography of Dimitri Tiomkin,” Blowitz-Maskel, Hollywood, 6 pages, undated.