Frank De Vol

Frank Denny De Vol, also known simply as De Vol (September 20, 1911 – October 27, 1999) was an American arranger, composer and actor.

Early life and career

De Vol was born in Moundsville, West Virginia and grew up in Canton, Ohio. His father, Herman Frank De Vol, was band-leader of a local movie orchestra and his mother, Minnie Emma Humphreys De Vol, had worked in a sewing shop. He attended Miami University.

When De Vol was 14, he became a member of the Musicians' Union. After playing violin in his father's orchestra and appearances in a Chinese restaurant, he joined the Horace Heidt Orchestra in the 1930s, being responsible for the arrangements. Later, he toured with the Alvino Rey Orchestra, before embarking on his recording career.

As arranger

From the 1940s, De Vol wrote arrangements for the studio recordings of many top singers, including Nat King Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, Tony Bennett, Dinah Shore, Doris Day and Vic Damone. His single most famous arrangement is probably the haunting string and piano accompaniment to Cole's Nature Boy, which was a US Number One in 1948. That same year, he released a version of "The Teddy Bears' Picnic" (Capitol Records 15420), that he arranged and sang lead vocals on.

In 1966–1967, he arranged the soundtrack for the 1967 Columbia Pictures comedy film, The Happening starring Anthony Quinn and co-produced The Supremes #1 American pop hit, "The Happening" alongside Motown producers Holland-Dozier-Holland.

Mood music

The success of Nature Boy, recorded on the Capitol Records label, led to an executive position for De Vol across at the rival Columbia Records. There, he recorded a series of orchestral mood music albums under the studio name "Music by De Vol" (which he also used for some of his film and TV work). The album Bacchanale Suite (1960) is a late, but acclaimed, example of De Vol's mood music. Each track is by English composer Albert Harris and is named after a god or goddess of Greek mythology.

Concert appearances

In the 1950s De Vol's orchestra played frequently at the Hollywood Palladium under the concert name "Music of the Century".

Hollywood

De Vol wrote the scores for many Hollywood movies, receiving Academy Award nominations for four of them: Pillow Talk (1959), Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), Cat Ballou (1965), and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967).

Other familiar movies which featured work by De Vol include What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Send Me No Flowers (1964), The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), The Dirty Dozen (1967), Krakatoa, East of Java (1969), Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo (1977), The Frisco Kid (1979), and Herbie Goes Bananas (1980).

De Vol also composed the jingle for the Screen Gems' Dancing Sticks logo (1963–1965), which appeared on all TV shows produced by the television division of Columbia Pictures.

Television work

Frank DeVol was musical director (and occasionally seen) on Edgar Bergen's 1956-57 CBS prime-time game show, Do You Trust Your Wife?.

"Frank DeVol's orchestra" was featured on the NBC prime time musical variety series The Lux Show Starring Rosemary Clooney, but the show only lasted one season (1957–58).

De Vol is best recognized for his television theme tunes, like Family Affair, Gidget, The Brady Bunch, and My Three Sons. The latter theme was musically complex, with a piano playing a triplet obligato over the melody in 4/4 time, but was a commercial success as well, providing De Vol with a hit single in 1961.

He composed scores for episodes of McCloud and The Love Boat, amongst much other work for TV.

In 1969, a music piece called "The Fuzz" became the theme song of a Brazilian TV newscast, called Jornal Nacional. However, it wasn't the first newscast to use that music; KOOL-TV (later KTSP, now KSAZ-TV) was the first TV station to use the music.

He also appeared on "The Betty White Show" (1954), and "Fernwood 2-Nite" (1977) and "America 2-Nite" (1978) as Happy Kyne.

Acting

De Vol was also an actor specializing in deadpan comic characters. He is perhaps best remembered for his role as bandleader Happy Kyne on the 1970s talk show parodies Fernwood 2Nite and America 2-Night. He appeared in several other TV series, such as I'm Dickens, He's Fenster, I Dream of Jeannie, Bonanza, Petticoat Junction, Mickey starring Mickey Rooney, The Brady Bunch, Get Smart (at least 2 appearances as Prof. Carleton), and The Jeffersons (where he portrayed a sad jingle-writer who moved into Mr. Bentley's vacant apartment).

He also appeared as a Bandleader in the last season of My Three Sons a show that he not only wrote the memorable theme music for but he was also the resident in-house composer for most of the twelve seasons that the show was on the air. He also scored most episodes of Family Affair and both shows at one time or another were scored with some of the same incidental music cues. This is not surpirsing as both shows had been produced by Don Fedderson Productions.

De Vol had memorable comic roles as Chief Eaglewood, the head of the Thundercloud Boys' Camp in The Parent Trap, and as the onscreen narrator in Jerry Lewis's 1967 comedy film The Big Mouth.

According to the commentary for the movie McLintock!, De Vol preferred to be credited as "Frank De Vol" for his acting appearances, and as simply "De Vol" for his musical work.

Private life

De Vol was married twice: first to Grayce Agnes McGinty in 1935. This fifty-four year marriage produced two daughters; Linda Morehouse, and Donna Copeland, and ended with Grayce's death in 1989. His second marriage was to television actress and big band singer Helen O'Connell in 1991, until her death 1993.

He was initiated as an honorary member of the Gamma Omega chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the national fraternity for men in music, in 1962.

Later life

In the mid-1990s, when well into his eighties, De Vol was active in the Big Band Academy of America.

De Vol died of congestive heart failure on October 27, 1999 in Lafayette, California. He is interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Hollywood Hills.

Awards and nominations

• Academy Award nomination: Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte
• Academy Award nomination: Pillow Talk
• Academy Award nomination: Cat Ballou
• Academy Award nomination: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

External links

• Frank De Vol in the Internet Movie Database
• Frank De Vol in the Big Bands Database
• Frank De Vol's Unofficial Site - Mostly soundtracks