William Lava
American composer (1911-1971)
William "Bill" Benjamin Lava (March 18, 1911 – February 20, 1971) was a composer and arranger who composed and conducted music for feature films as well as Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies animated cartoons from 1962 to 1969, replacing the deceased Milt Franklyn, making him the last composer and arranger in the classic era of Warner Bros. Cartoons.
Lava's music was markedly different from that of Franklyn and previous composer Carl Stalling, with a tendency towards atonality. A sense of tension is often created in Lava's scores using sequences based on the notes of the diminished seventh chord.
Lava also composed and sang the theme to the TV western series Cheyenne and composed music for one episode of the series Gunsmoke ("Little Girl," April 1, 1961).
At different times, Lava was credited as "William Lava" or "Bill Lava".
Education
Lava was educated at Von Humboldt Grammar School and Lane Tech High School in Chicago, then attended Northwestern University where he majored in journalism. He studied conducting with Albert Coates in Los Angeles. Lava also wrote short stories for various magazines and was the editor of Northwestern Commerce Magazine and associate editor of Purple Parrot.
Career
Arriving in Hollywood in 1936, Lava made arrangements for musical radio programs, then scored a number of serials, such as Zorro's Fighting Legion, and motion pictures, such as The Painted Stallion; Orphans of the Street, A Boy and His Dog;My Wife's Relatives, Embraceable You; Dangerously They Live; The Hidden Hand; I Won't Play; Star in the Night and Hitler Lives.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2621011. VIAF identifies the subject as 64202093. The Library of Congress control number is no91004158. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1911, 1971, 1962 and 1969.
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This entry incorporates text from “William Lava” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.