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The son of a prominent Russian journalist, composer/ conductor Danielle Amfitheatrof fled with his family to Europe after the Revolution. He began his music studies in Prague, eventually graduating from the Royal Academy of Music in Rome. It was in the latter city that Amfitheatrof wrote his first movie score, for Max Ophuls' La Signora di Tutti (1934). Moving to the U.S. in 1937, Amfitheatrof conducted symphony orchestras in Minneapolis and Boston, then was hired as a composer by MGM in 1941. Free-lancing throughout most his Hollywood career, he was Oscar-nominated for his work on United Artists' Guest Wife (1945) and Disney's Song of the South (1947). Danielle Amfitheatrof returned to Rome in 1965, after completing his last Hollywood score for Sam Peckinpah's Major Dundee.