Klaus Döring's Classical Music/Klaus Döring's Klassische Musik

... and one who definitely didn’t! Ryan Gosling in La La Land.  Picture: Rex By Maddy Shaw Roberts Among the annals of actors who have made uncomfortable attempts to mime playing an instrument (we’re looking at you, Jeremy Irons), here are a few who did it for themselves… Ryan Gosling – La La Land It’s a huge compliment to Gosling that most people assume his piano close-ups were played by a jazz double – but it was all him. He said: “I had to play ‘City of Stars’ for six months, for hours every day. It’s a lot of time alone, and you become a bit anti-social. Every time I tried to have a conversation with someone during that rehearsal period, I felt like Bambi on ice.” Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon – Walk the Line Joaquin and Reese's performance as country-singing duo Johnny Cash and June Carter was ridiculously impressive. Trained by Roger Love, the actors were rumoured to have nearly quit over the difficulty of lear...

Henry Mancini was not the first composer to introduce jazz elements into film and television scoring, but he was the first to become wildly successful with the public, particularly with the slinky, playful theme for the Pink Panther movies and the brassy, big band sound of the TV series Peter Gunn. Mancini was equally adept at broader, lyrical pop styles, especially in the song "Moon River," the achingly beautiful theme for the film Breakfast at Tiffany's. He won 20 Grammy awards out of 73 nominations and became a familiar public figure as a gentle, avuncular presence on his own syndicated musical TV series and as a frequent guest conductor of orchestral pops concerts. Young Enrico Nicola Mancini played piccolo and flute with his father in a local Sons of Italy band. In his early teens, he determined to become a film composer and was sent to Pittsburgh to study piano and arranging. Mancini entered Juilliard to study piano in 1942, but within a year was drafted...