Born in Chicago, the American conductor, violinist and composer Victor Young studied at the Conservatory in Warsaw, appearing there as a soloist with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra in 1917. Returning to America in 1920, he made his solo début in Chicago and during the following years made a career leading cinema ensembles and as a theatre arranger and performer. After a period with Brunswick Records he moved to Hollywood in 1935, working with Paramount Pictures. His career continued over the following twenty years with the composition and conducting of film music in a series of more than 225 films, ranging from Ebb Tide in 1937 to his final Around the World in Eighty Days in 1956, a score that won a posthumous Academy Award.