Q&A; WITH HENRY MANCINI : Turning 70, With Wine, Roses and a Few Thorns

Henry Mancini turned 70 Saturday and the event will be celebrated Tuesday night in a benefit concert at UCLA Pauley Pavilion. It comes at a particularly difficult time. In February, Mancini was diagnosed as having inoperable cancer. He nonetheless remains alert and optimistic, and is close to completing the music for a Broadway version of “Victor / Victoria.”

Mancini’s list of achievements and honors is long and varied. “Moon River,” “Days of Wine and Roses” and “Charade” have become pop song classics, and “Baby Elephant Walk,” “Pink Panther” and the theme for “Peter Gunn” are instrumental perennials. His film scores range from “The Glenn Miller Story” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” to “Touch of Evil,” “10” and “Victor / Victoria.”

Mancini has received 72 Grammy nominations and won 20. Fourteen Academy Award nominations have resulted in four Oscars, and his more than 90 albums have produced eight gold records.

Born in Cleveland on April 16, 1924, he was raised in Aliquippa, Pa. His studies at the Juilliard School of Music were interrupted in 1943 for Army Air Corps and infantry service. After World War II, he arranged music for the Tex Beneke Orchestra before starting his film career at Universal-International in 1952.

Mancini married the former Ginny O’Connor--an original member of Mel Torme’s MelTones--in 1947. They have three children.

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Question: I know that you’re aiming for a late November opening of the stage version of ‘Victoria,” your big project of the moment. How’s it coming along?

Answer: The only thing I have left right now, and it’s a big one, is the Jim Garner character’s number. I’m about halfway through, and the harder part is yet to come, but I’m not worried about it.

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Q: Has the show flowed fairly easily from the film version?

A: Well, the first song we wrote was in 1982, then Blake Edwards got sick and we had to put it aside for a while. But the stage version is very different. We’re not using any of the music from the picture. And, frankly, I’m kind of happy about that, although there were a couple of good songs in the movie. But we wanted to get new. We wanted to get fresh approaches. And Julie Andrews, who’ll be starring again, wanted that, too. You know, the words have to come out of her mouth. I just try to give Julie and Leslie (Bricusse, the lyricist) that platform so that the words are right. A lot of times I’ve done music first, and occasionally Leslie’s done the words first. But the words are what Julie is singing, not la, la, la, la. And she knows what she wants and what feels right.

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Q: How does it feel to be thinking about music from a Broadway, rather than a film, point of view?

A: I’ve lived my life in the movies since I started out in 1952 at Universal. “Here kid, here’s the picture. We need music; put it here, here, here, here and here. Do it.” That was what they said. Then, as you get more successful, they get more kind to you. But on stage, as you move along, you move along with the director and the choreographer and the lyricist. You gotta start thinking alike or else it falls apart. But it’s a good thing, if you have any pride in what you do. It’s not a gig. Let me put it that way. I mean, look at me, for Pete’s sake. Here I am trying to step in to a place with Fritz Loewe and Richard Rodgers. You know what that does? It keeps you honest, knowing these other cats have come before.

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Q: With this 70th birthday coming up, is there anything in particular that stands out in memory for you?

A: I think that popularity-wise, it was “Peter Gunn.” But as far as emotionally and artistically, I think it was the score I did for Orson Welles’ “Touch of Evil.” If you listen to that score you’ll hear a lot of things that finally developed further in film music. Because Welles didn’t want the ordinary kind of thing. He hired a whole new band for the score. He didn’t use the Universal orchestra. Shelly Manne came in, and Pete Candoli, Milt Bernhardt, and the bongo whiz, Jack Costanza. Of course, while something like that is happening, you’re so busy that you kind of forget to smell the roses.

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Q: And the hot part of your career?

A: That started after I left Universal, with “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” And I went right from “Tiffany” to “Experiment in Terror,” and then “Days of Wine and Roses.” Then “Charade” came along, and “Pink Panther.” It was just a roll. It was a burst of energy. And the one thing that I remember about it is that I was never hassled. There’s a mentality in the film community that everything is late, everything is a hassle, the director’s going to kill you. All that stuff. All the negative stuff. And sometimes it does happen that way. But I just went through it and enjoyed the hell out of it. And I still do. I just love what I do.

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Q: When did that feeling of enjoyment begin? When did you first sense that there was something magical in this work that you do?

A: It took a while for magical to show up. Because when you’re a young arranger--and I started when I was 13 or 14--just to get the notes down on the paper, and then hear it, was something. It wasn’t like magic, it was like you built something and it worked. That was good enough. Then, when I started to write for big bands in the Army, I began to step back and listen, not just to the notes on paper, but to actually think about musical lines and stuff. That’s when it started to get magical. And then later on with the Tex Beneke band, with strings, that was a big step. And it’s been that way ever since, when you say magical.

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Q: If you had to define one, central aspect of the Mancini magic, what would it be?

A: Melody, I guess. I don’t want to say that I can’t write a bad melody, but I try not to. I’m very conscious of melody. But it’s not only the long sweeping lines that people think of in some movies. A good theme--like the “Pink Panther” or “Baby Elephant Walk”--can work all the way through the picture, which is what I did with them. So, for me, a good melody is not just a pretty tune.

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Q: So the work still captivates you?

A: Oh, sure. It always has. I haven’t changed, not since I was 13 years old, copying sax choruses off Artie Shaw records and not knowing what the hell I was doing.

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Q: And this development with your health?

A: Well, when that first came about, I was thinking, “What’s going to happen when I go upstairs and try to write?” And, I’ll be damned, I came up here and wrote, that’s all, like nothing’s wrong. I had no worries about the inevitability or where the thing’s going. Can’t. Can’t do that. I don’t know. Maybe it’ll hit me later. Way later.

* A tribute to Henry Mancini, benefiting the UCLA Center for the Performing Arts and the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, with Luciano Pavarotti, Julie Andrews, Andy Williams, Quincy Jones, John Williams and Dudley Moore. Pauley Pavilion, UCLA, 7:30 p.m. $300 ($240 tax-deductible). (310) 206-6431.