The King

Let's sing "Happy Birthday" for Leroy Shield.  He's one of those well-known composers no one knows.  He wrote background music for Hal Roach movies. If you watched these films, you'd recognize over a dozen of these melodies.

For example, his tune "Good Old Days," first heard in Teacher's Pet (1930), became the theme song for the Our Gang series.



His "Beautiful Lady" was the theme for the Zasu Pitts/Thelma Todd series.



And "Look At Him Now" is used in dozen's of Roach shorts:



He also recorded a lot of great music as a house musician and conductor for RCA Victor: