Lennie Hayton

Lennie Hayton (New York, 1908 – Los Angeles, 1971) was an American musical director, conductor and arranger whose work straddles the boundary between jazz and Hollywood studio music.

He began as a pianist, playing and arranging for jazz musicians. In the late 1920s he was particularly associated with Paul Whiteman's orchestra, for which he produced versions of classic songs, such as Nobody's Sweetheart, that combined jazz instruments with those of the traditional orchestra. Later, his arrangement of Star Dust gave clarinettist Artie Shaw a hit in the early 1940s. In 1940 he became musical director at the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios and, in 1953, moved to Twentieth Century-Fox.

He worked on scores for numerous films and musicals, among them The Harvey Girls (1945) and The Pirate (1948). He was nominated for Academy Awards for musicals such as Singin' in the Rain (1952) and Hello Dolly! (1969), and won an Oscar in 1949, shared with Roger Edens, for the musical direction of On the Town, based on Leonard Bernstein's ballet Fancy Free.

His connection with jazz also continued through his marriage to singer Lena Horne, whom he is credited with helping to develop her voice and for whom he managed her professional career.