Angela Morley - WikiHQ

Angela Morley (born Walter Morley Stott, 10 March 192414 January 2009) was an English composer and conductor who became familiar to BBC Radio listeners in the 1950s under the name of Wally Stott. Morley provided incidental music for The Goon Show and Hancock's Half Hour. She attributed her entry into composing and arranging largely to the influence and encouragement of the Canadian light music composer Robert Farnon. Morley transitioned in 1972 and thereafter lived openly as a transgender woman.

Morley won three Emmy Awards for her work in music arrangement. These were in the category of Outstanding Music Direction, in 1985, 1988 and 1990, for Christmas in Washington and two television specials starring Julie Andrews. Morley also received eight Emmy nominations for composing music for television series such as Dynasty and Dallas. She was twice nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Best Original Song Score: first for The Little Prince (1974), a nomination shared with Alan Jay Lerner, Frederick Loewe, and Douglas Gamley; and second for The Slipper and the Rose (1976), which Morley shared with Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman. She was the first openly transgender person to be nominated for an Academy Award.

Early life and education

Morley was born in Leeds, Yorkshire on 10 March 1924 under the name of Walter Stott. or 1944. and was also the musical director for The Goon Show from the third series in 1952 to the last show in 1960, conducting the BBC Dance Orchestra. The next hits she worked on were Robert Earl's "I May Never Pass this Way Again" and Frankie Vaughan's "Tower of Strength". At this time, she was a regular guest conductor of the BBC Radio Orchestra

Morley continued to work in television until 1990. Morley was her original middle name; her birth was registered as Walter Morley Stott, Morley being her grandmother's maiden name. Her death was a result of complications of a fall and a heart attack. 1977 is a semi-fictional account of the year in which Morley was enlisted to complete composition of the musical soundtrack to the film Watership Down in three weeks, after Master of the Queen's Music Malcolm Williamson left the project. noting that:

Horak includes Morley among her selected list of trans and gender-variant filmmakers as a composer, noting in particular her work on The Little Prince and Watership Down alongside the film works of other transgender and gender-variant people in Classical Hollywood cinema such as Dorothy Arzner and Christine Jorgensen. and also by a blue plaque at her birthplace in Kirkstall. She is one of 383 women from Leeds whose names are on Ribbons – a sculpture celebrating women from the city, which was unveiled in October 2024.

Genre

Morley's work was influenced by a number of genres and styles. She initially played in British dance bands, and spent much of her career composing music that was labelled as light and easy listening, as well as film scores and television soundtracks. Light music and easy listening were generally not taken seriously or given much respect at the time that Morley was composing,