Jack Beaver

Jack Beaver (27 March 1900 – 10 September 1963) was a British film score composer and pianist. Beaver was born in Clapham, London. He studied at the Metropolitan Academy of Music, Forest Gate and then at the Royal Academy of Music under Frederick Corder. After graduating he worked for the BBC. In the early 1930s he played with the Michael Doré Trio and wrote some concert pieces, including the three movement Sonatina for piano. He also contributed music and arrangements for various BBC radio drama and music features, including most of the radio adaptions of films produced by Douglas Moodie, throughout the 1930s and 1940s. As (like Charles Williams) a member of the Gaumont–British Pictures composing team from the 1930s he was a prolific composer of film scores - around 40 scores between 1932 and 1947 - though many of his contributions were not credited. These included scores for the Secrets of Life series of documentaries produced between 1934 and 1947. He wrote music for Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (1935), and composed the pseudo piano concerto Portrait of Isla from the score for the 1940 Edgar Wallace film Th..."> ()