Radio, film and television
On radio, Young was musical director of The Old Gold Don Ameche Show and Harvest of Stars. He was musical director for many of Bing Crosby's recordings for the American branch of Decca Records. For Decca, he also conducted the first album of songs from the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, a "pre-soundtrack" cover version rather than a true soundtrack album. The album featured Judy Garland and the Ken Darby Singers singing songs from the film in Young's own arrangements. Young often collaborated with Ken Darby and the Singers for radio programs starring popular Met Opera baritone John Charles Thomsen; he also composed music for several Decca spoken word albums.
Young received 22 Academy Award nominations for his work in film. He was twice nominated four times in a single year, but did not win an Oscar during his lifetime. Young received his only Oscar posthumously for his score of Around the World in Eighty Days (1956). Thus, Victor Young holds the record for most Oscar nominations before winning his first award.
His other nominated scores include Anything Goes (1936), The Big Broadcast of 1937 (1936), Artists and Models (1937), The Gladiator (1938), Golden Boy (1939), For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), The Uninvited (1944), Love Letters (1945), So Evil My Love (1948), The Emperor Waltz (1948), The Paleface (1948), Samson and Delilah (1949), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1949), Our Very Own (1950), September Affair (1950), My Favorite Spy (1951), Payment on Demand (1951), The Quiet Man (1952), Scaramouche (1952), Something to Live For (1952), Shane (1953), The Country Girl (1954), A Man Alone (1955), The Conqueror (1956) and The Maverick Queen (1956).
He contributed two tone poems, "White" and "Black", to the 1956 album Frank Sinatra Conducts Tone Poems of Color.
His last scores were for the 1957 films Omar Khayyam, Run of the Arrow and China Gate, which were released after his death. The last was left unfinished at the time of his death and was completed by his longtime friend Max Steiner.
"The Call of the Faraway Hills", which Young composed for the film Shane, was also used as the theme for the U.S. TV series Shane.
Young won a Primetime Emmy Award for his scoring of the TV special Light's Diamond Jubilee which aired October 24, 1954 on all four major U.S. television networks.
As an occasional bit player, Young can be glimpsed briefly in The Country Girl (1954) playing a recording studio leader conducting Bing Crosby while he tapes "The Search is Through (You've Got What It Takes).“
