John Alfred "Johnny" Mandel was an American composer and arranger of popular songs, films, music, and jazz.
He was born in New York in 1925, the son of an aspiring opera singer mother. He studied music at schools, including Juilliard, and learned trumpet and trombone, finding early work with jazz bands and orchestras headed by Count Basie, Buddy Rich, Jimmy Dorsey, and more. He also played in a group with Alan Greenspan, who went on to become a long-standing chair of the US Federal Reserve. He began composing and arranging, and over the years created orchestral arrangements for Frank Sinatra, Michael Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Tony Bennett, and more, but became most celebrated for film scoring. An early success was the 1964 James Garner and Julie Andrews film The Americanization of Emily, and its theme song "Emily". He was perhaps best known for composing the theme song for M*A*S*H*.
For Disney, he composed the score for Escape to Witch Mountain and Freaky Friday.
His song "The Shadow of your Smile" was featured in Crossing the Bridge.
