Jeter's energetic performance earned him a Tony award and gave him a much higher profile to stake a claim in movies. That all changed when Tommy Tune cast him in the Broadway hit Grand Hotel (1990) in the role of Otto Kringelin, a dying clerk enjoying a last fling in Berlin. Jeter spend the next decade landing mostly stage work and making occasional guest forays in popular television shows: Lou Grant, Night Court, and Designing Women, but his unique physical presence (a slight, 5'4' frame, premature balding, owlish features) made it difficult for him to land substantial parts. After graduation, he pursued his career in earnest and moved to New York and worked as a law firm secretary until he found some stage work and his film debut in Milos Forman's adaptation of the musical Hair (1979). He began medical studies at Memphis State University, but soon discovered a love for the theater. The cause of death has not been determined, although in a 1997 interview for Entertainment Tonight Jeter did disclose he was HIV-positive. Michael Jeter, the diminutive actor whose versatility in all mediums earned him numerous accolades and awards, was found dead on March 30 in his Hollywood Hills home. He is survived by his wife, Eve sons Peter and Gregory daughters Emilie and Elizabeth and five grandchildren. Far From Heaven, his final feature film score, received an OscarВ® nomination for Best Score in 2002. He then graced the silver screen for a few more years composing some terrific pieces for such popular commercial hits as My Left Foot (1989), A River Runs Through It (1992) and The Age of Innocence (1993). But then director John Landis had Bernstein write the sumptuous score for his comedy Trading Places (1983), and Bernstein soon found himself back in the game. His career faltered by the '80s though, as he did some routine Bill Murray comedies: Meatballs (1980) and Stripes (1981). His thundering, heavily orchestrated score perfectly suite the bombastic epic, and he promptly earned his first OscarВ® nod for music.ДЄfter The Ten Commandments (1956), Bernstein continued to distinguish himself in a row of fine films: The Rainmaker (1956), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), Some Came Running (1958), The Magnificent Seven (a most memorable galloping march, 1960) To Kill a Mockingbird (unique in its use of single piano notes and haunting use of a flute, 1962) Hud (1963) earned a deserved Academy Award for the delightful, 'flapper' music for the Julie Andrews period comedy Thoroughly Modern Mille (1967), and True Grit (1969). De Mille, who had Bernstein replace the ailing Victor Young on The Ten Commandments (1956). Fittingly, Bernstein used some memorable jazz motifs for the film and his fine scoring put him back on the map. Rumors of his 'communist' leanings came to surface at this time, and, feeling the effects of the blacklist, he found himself scoring such cheesy fare as Robot Monster Cat Women of the Moon (both 1953) and Miss Robin Caruso (1954).Дespite his politics, Otto Preminger hired him to do the music for The Man With the Golden Arm, (1955) in which Frank Sinatra played a heroin-addicted jazz musician. He did his first score for the football film Saturday's Hero (1950), and then proved his worth with his trenchant, moody music for the Joan Crawford vehicle Sudden Fear (1952). It was around this time he became interested in film scoring when he went to see William Dieterle's The Devil and Daniel Webster (1941), a film whose score was composed by Bernard Herrmann, a man Bernstein idolized as the ideal film composer.Д«ernstein, who originally intended to be a concert pianist and gave several performances in New York after being discharged from military service, decided to relocate to Hollywood in 1950. After graduating in 1942, he joined the Army Air Corps, where he remained throughout World War II, mostly working on scores for propaganda films. He entered New York University in 1939, where he majored in music education.

He displayed a talent in music at a very young age, and was given a scholarship to study piano at Juilliard when he was only 12.

He was 82.Д®lmer Bernstein, who was not related to Leonard Bernstein, was born on August 4, 1922, in New York City. Elmer Bernstein, the film composer who created unforgettable music for such classics as The Magnificent Seven, To Kill a Mockingbird, and won his only Academy Award for Thoroughly Modern Millie, died of natural causes at his Ojai, California home on August 17.

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