Louis F. Gottschalk

The son of a Missouri governor, also named Louis, he studied music in Stuttgart, Germany, where his father, a judge, was American consul.

[2] He was a pioneer of original film music, largely due to his work with independent filmmaker L. Frank Baum, for whom he composed the musical, The Tik-Tok Man of Oz, to Baum's libretto, which producer Oliver Morosco decided not to bring to Broadway after only modest success in Los Angeles.

Baum, as president, with Gottschalk, as vice president, Harry Marston Haldeman as secretary, and Clarence R. Rundel as treasurer, founded The Oz Film Manufacturing Company in 1914 as an outgrowth of Haldeman's men's social group, The Uplifters, which met at the Los Angeles Athletic Club.

After the Oz company dissolved, Gottschalk went on to work with D. W. Griffith, arranging cue sheets for Broken Blossoms (1919) and composing a score for Orphans of the Storm (1921).

Other major films for which he contributed scores include The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Three Musketeers, Little Lord Fauntleroy (all 1921), and Romola (1924).