Born in London, where he studied as an eight-year-old at the Royal Academy of Music, Adolph Deutsch moved to America in 1910, developing there an interest in orchestration, particularly in arrangements for dance bands in the 1920s. He established himself from the late 1930s as a film composer.

Film Music

From 1937 until 1945 Deutsch was under contract with Warner Brothers. After a short period of freelance work he joined MGM and then scored films for United Artists. He wrote music for 10 Humphrey Bogart films, among some 53 film scores for Warner Brothers, while later scores for United Artists included scores for two Billy Wilder films: Some Like It Hot and The Apartment. The film The Maltese Falcon, with Bogart, was released in 1941, with High Sierra in the same year. 1942 brought George Washington Slept Here, with Northern Pursuit following in 1943 and The Mask of Dimitrios in 1944.