Biography
Willy Schmidt-Gentner was a German composer of film music. Born on 6 April 1894 in Neustadt am Rennsteig, Thuringia, he studied the violin and composition with Max Reger. After the First World War he worked as a civil servant before becoming involved in cinema music, initially as an orchestral leader in Berlin cinemas.
He composed scores for numerous German silent films, including Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) and Woman in the Moon (1929). In 1933 he moved to Vienna, where he continued to score films and directed two features. He remained active after the war, writing music for around 200 films in total, many of them Austrian musicals and Heimatfilme, until his retirement in 1955. He died in Vienna on 12 February 1964.
