NitrateVille.com

Just came across this on the Dean's List.


http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/s ... -+Music%29

Her son is noted film and TV composer Charles Bernstein.

Mildred Wolf, one of the last surviving movie accompanists from the silent film era, died Sunday in her West Los Angeles home of natural causes, one day after her 101st birthday.

Wolf’s son is Charles Bernstein, a prolific film and TV composer whose credits include work on such projects as Inglourious Basterds, Miss Evers’ Boys, Love at First Bite and Viva Knievel!

Born in Minneapolis, Wolf studied the craft of cinematic organ with Lawrence Morton, who was an arranger and composer for film studios and later founded Los Angeles’ renowned Monday Evening Concerts in the 1950s.

In 1926, Wolf accompanied silent films on the grand Wurlitzer Theater Organ in Minneapolis but was soon retired with the arrival of talking pictures.

Wolf married record producer and entrepreneur Charles Bernstein Sr., who passed away in 1952, then remarried and survived her second husband, financial executive Julius Wolf. She continued to play music into her final year.

In addition to her son, Wolf’s survivors include a daughter, Carol Auslander; Bernstein’s wife Georgianne; three grandchildren; and six great grandchildren.

Sorry to hear of the passing of a woman who sounds like a remarkable lady.

Still, even as the people among us who actually participated in the silent era are fewer and fewer, there are real connections that can be made to the period, which, after all, wasn't that long ago.

Last month we screened the Gloria Swanson pic 'Sadie Thompson' in Manchester, N.H., and as our special guest we had a local guy, Richard Backus, who worked with Gloria on stage in 1971 in 'Butterflies are Free' when he was a young actor in New York. At our screening, he shared recollections of her, and even brought along a poster she autographed for him. And this gentleman, a recently retired English teacher, wasn't ancient!

For our audience, it really helped bring the era to life in a way that was as close as we're going to get to having Gloria there herself, I think. One woman actually brought a paperback copy of Swanson's late-in-life best seller, "Swanson on Swanson," to have her co-star autograph it!

Of course it helped that Gloria remained active, appearing in everything from 'Airport 1975' to 'The Beverly Hillbillies.' But even her co-star from 1971 said he'd never had a chance to see her in her pre-'Sunset Boulevard' prime, to see for himself what all the fuss was about. We also screened 'Teddy at the Throttle,' the latter part of which brought down the house. But people were stunned by 'Sadie,' with Swanson and Lionel Barrymore burning up the screen.

I say all this in honor of Mrs. Wolf, to point out that her passing is not necessarily part of the end of an era, but an example of the remarkable continuity that we are all in the process of inheriting. Heck, her own son, Charles Bernstein, wrote music for the recent blockbuster 'Inglourious Basterds.' So yes, silent films may seem like they're from the ancient past, but we should realize that they really weren't that long ago, and myriad connections to the era remain all around us.

In the meantime, let's celebrate those among us who were present at the creation. For screenings of some Norma and Constance Talmadge films this summer in Wilton, N.H., one of my guests will be a delightful local woman who will turn 100 years young next March, and is looking forward to reconnecting with the trend-setters of her younger days.

Jeff Rapsis
www.jeffrapsis.com