Daniel White was born on May 22, 1912, in Malakoff, a
suburb of Paris, France. His ancestors were Scottish. White grew up in West
Yorkshire. His family moved to Paris while Daniel was still young and it was
originally planned the he would enter the family business in the textile
sector. After the company went bankrupt, White was fortunately able to pursue
his love of music.
During World War II, he worked as an interpreter in the
British army and was seriously injured during the Dunkirk evacuation. After the
war, Daniel played the piano in nightclubs and cabarets. He composed the
soundtrack for his first film in 1947. He wrote jingles for many TV commercials
of the 1950s, for Polo, or Kit-Kat-E, which were seen on British television.
Daniel composed the soundtracks of several films made by
Spanish filmmaker Jesus Franco. It began with “The Sadist” (1962). In addition,
he also made music for films made by Pierre Chevalier, Lucien and Leon
Klimovsky. In addition, Daniel White recorded a large volume of albums under
many pseudonyms, including albums for Comedy Records as Emile Colorado, rock
records as Guy Forlane, and organ music as Virginia Morgan.
White was an incredibly prolific musician, he was known
to be capable of recording 12 tracks for an album in one day. His favorite
composers were Debussy and Ravel. Daniel White was particularly interested in
composing for the human voice. As well as composing soundtracks for Jesus
Franco, White also played in a handful of Franco’s films. He was usually seen
as a police inspector and even worked as a production assistant on several
films of Franco’s in the early 1970s. White composed scores for four
Euro-westerns: “Billy the Kid” (1963), “Cavalry Charge” (1964), “Django Does Not
Forgive” (1966) and “The Girls of the Golden Saloon” (1973). White died at age
85 May 24, 1997. Today we remember Daniel J. White on what would have been his 100th
birthday.
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