CASPER, Wyo. -- His music has graced church services and TV Westerns. He played the organ through the evolution of the entertainment industry, from the silent pictures of the 1920s to color television of the 1960s and '70s.
Now Rex Koury has settled in Casper after a life of playing the organ in Hollywood, New York and London."It was fascinating work," he said of his career.
At 89, Koury is still pulling out all the stops on one of Wyoming's largest pipe organs at the First Presbyterian Church.
Koury was born in London, England, in 1911 and raised in New Jersey from age 1. Starting at age 14, he accompanied silent movies on the keyboard and later played organ at the famed Roxy Theater in New York City.
When he worked as the house organist at a silent movie theater, Koury said, the music cue sheet would typically arrive about a week ahead of the film. The organist, he said, would pick out numbers from the cue sheet to fit the film and add some improvisation of his own.
"You had to manufacture listenable music to fit the action and make it good music," Koury said. "The ability to improvise music is a job in and of itself."
When sound was introduced into films in the late 1920s, he said, his job was relegated to being a spot organist.
At 17, Koury said, he left to California to try his luck. "I was kind of intrigued by the possibility of movie production and doing music for films," he said. "But I never went into films."
Instead, the organist said, he found his calling in radio.
"My first break came along in radio at the KFI radio station in Los Angeles," he said.
Koury soon became the staff organist for NBC Hollywood and wrote free-lance compositions for CBS Radio. He was later appointed music director for ABC Hollywood.
He gained fame in the 1930s for his piano work for the "Fibber McGee and Molly" radio show and for his work as musical director for the "Army of Stars" -- Salvation Army-sponsored Christmas broadcasts heard around the world.
During World War II, Koury joined the U.S. Air Force, where he served on the domestic front as band leader in tours and radio shows. He said his higher-ups apparently thought his talent was too valuable to send into action overseas.
"They wouldn't let me go over there," he said.
In 1952, Koury composed what would probably become his greatest claim to fame -- the theme song to the newly developed radio show "Gunsmoke."
He said his inspiration for the music was nothing special.
"I just had to write a Western-sounding theme, and that's what I wrote," he said. "You think of a Western, and you think of the open plains, something with a cowboy motif, more or less."
"I sweated it out a little when it was first played before the executives," he said. "Fortunately, their reaction was positive."