Composer and Musical Director Frank Tours 1963 Westwood Village Cemetery

Frank E. Tours (September 1, 1877 - February 2, 1963) worked as a musical director and composer on the musical state and for several motion pictures. His wife, Helen C. Tours (November 14, 1894 - January 9, 1974) is interred with him at Westwood Village Cemetery.

Adapted from The Encyclopedia of the Musical Theatre by Kurt Gänzl:

Frank Edward Tours was born in London, 1 September 1877. He died in Los Angeles, 2 February 1963. He was a conductor, arranger, orchestrator and sometime composer to the musical stage on both sides of the Atlantic.

The son of the well-known conductor, composer and arranger Berthold Tours, Frank Tours studied music at the Royal College of Music in London and was employed thereafter, for many years, as a theatre conductor. At the age of 21 he was musical director for Marie Lloyd's tour of Granville Bantock's musical comedy The ABC, and over the next 20 years he conducted shows in a series of London theatres (Lady Madcap, The Little Cherub, The Gay Cordons, The Dashing Little Duke, Captain Kidd, Irene et al) and, latterly and increasingly, in American houses (The Kiss Waltz, Tonight's the Night, Follow Me, Irene, Love o' Mike, Rock-a-Bye Baby, The Lady in Red, Mecca, several editions of the Ziegfeld Follies, Smiles, Face the Music, As Thousands Cheer, Jubilee, the Music Box Revues, Red, Hot and Blue etc). He was also, for a period, musical director at the Plaza picture theatre in London.

As a composer, he made an early attempt at comic opera with a musical version of The Lady of Lyons, but he was best known as an adept at the additional number, composing songs or part-scores for such pieces as Mr Wix of Wickham, The Dairymaids, The Little Cherub, See See, The New Aladdin, Broadway's semi-British The Hoyden, and The Gay Cordons. He turned down the opportunity to write the full score for the last-named piece, but he did write the whole music for Seymour Hicks's subsequent The Dashing Little Duke, only to find it perforated with Jerome Kern numbers in the course of the run. After the limited success of this piece, he returned to composing piece-work and wrote individual songs for a number of further shows, including Mr. Manhattan (1916), Follow Me (1916),Mayflowers (1925) and Blue Eyes (1928) as well as for the music halls (Beyond the Sunset', 'Red Rose', 'In Flanders Fields'). His only other full score was that for the musical comedy Girl o' Aline (including a song 'Silver Lining'), produced by Elisabeth Marbury and the Shuberts for 48 performances in 1918 and then taken around America as The Victory Girl. He later adapted the British adaptation of Walzer aus Men for Broadway and spent six years working for Paramount Pictures in Britain and in America.

In spite of his long period as a contributor to the musical stage, Tours's most successful single song was not a show number but his setting of Rudyard Kipling's 'Mother o' Mine' as performed by Richard Crooks et al.

1901 Melnotte, or The Gardener's Bride (Arthur Anderson/ Herbert Shelley) Coronet Theater 30 September

1902 Mr Wix of Wickham (w Frank Seddon, George Everard, Herbert Darnley/Darnley) Borough Theatre, Stratford East 21 July

1906 The Dairymaids (w Paul Rubens/Rubens, Arthur Wimperis/Alexander M Thompson, Robert Courtneidge) Apollo Theatre 14 April

1907 The Hoyden (w Rubens/Tristan Bernard ad Cosmo Hamilton) Knickerbocker Theater, New York 19 October

1909 The Dashing Little Duke (Adrian Ross/Seymour Hicks) Hicks Theatre 17 February

1910 Little Johnnie Jones (Preston Wayne/H M Vernon) 1 act Tottenham Palace 9 May

1911 La Belle Paree (w Jerome Kern/Edward Madden/Edgar Smith) Winter Garden, New York 20 March

1912 0-Mi-Iy (w Herman Finck/Hicks) 1 act London Hippodrome 25 March

1918 Girl o' Mine (aka Oh Mama!) (w Augustus Barrett/Philip Bartholomae) Bijou Theater, New York 28 January

1918 The Victory Girl revised Girl o' Mine (ad Alex Sullivan, Lynn Cowan) Syracuse, 16 November

1920 Mimi (w Adolf Philipp/Edward Paulton/Paulton, Philipp) Shubert Belasco Theater, Washington 14 March

From IMDB:

Musical Department

The Brighton Strangler (composer: stock music - uncredited) 1943
Gildersleeve's Bad Day (composer: stock music - uncredited) 1943
Journey Into Fear (composer: stock music - uncredited) 1942
Seven Miles from Alcatraz (composer: stock music - uncredited) 1941
Lady Scarface (composer: stock music - uncredited) 1940
The Villain Still Pursued Her (musical director) 1940
Too Many Girls (orchestra conductor) 1940
Men Against the Sky (musical director) 1939
Conspiracy (musical director) 1939
Career (composer: stock music - uncredited) 1939
Almost a Gentleman (musical director) 1939
Beauty for the Asking (musical director) 1939
Boy Slaves (musical director) 1938
The Duke of West Point (musical director) 1938
Tarnished Angel (musical director) 1938
Smashing the Rackets (musical director) 1938
Mother Carey's Chickens (musical director) 1938
Joy of Living (musical director) 1938
Everybody's Doing It (musical director) 1937
She's Got Everything (musical director) 1937
Fight for Your Lady (composer: stock music - uncredited) / (musical director) 1935
The Scoundrel (musical director) 1934
Gambling (musical director) 1934
Crime Without Passion (music arranger) 1933
The Emperor Jones (musical director) 1931
Personal Maid (musical advisor - uncredited) 1931
One Heavenly Night (musical director) 1930
Laughter (musical director) 1929
Glorifying the American Girl (musical director - uncredited) 1929
The Cocoanuts (musical director)

Composer

Repent at Leisure (uncredited) 1940
The Villain Still Pursued Her (uncredited) 1940
Men Against the Sky (uncredited) 1940
Beyond Tomorrow 1939
Conspiracy 1939
Trouble in Sundown (uncredited) 1939
Beauty for the Asking (uncredited) 1939
Boy Slaves (uncredited) 1938
Smashing the Rackets (uncredited) 1938
Mother Carey's Chickens (uncredited) 1934
Crime Without Passion 1933
The Emperor Jones 1931
His Woman (uncredited) 1931
My Sin (uncredited) 1931
Night Angel (uncredited) 1929
Booklovers (Short) 1929
The Cocoanuts (uncredited) 

Soundtrack 

Flight for Freedom (music: "Sonny" - uncredited) 1941
Citizen Kane (music: "Theme" - uncredited) 1940
Beyond Tomorrow (writer: "Louisiana Lady" - uncredited) 1929
The Cocoanuts (writer: "BALLET MUSIC" (1929) - uncredited)