Melville A. Leven (11 November, 1914–17 December, 2007) was an American composer and lyricist who had a long association with the Walt Disney Company, although he also wrote songs for Peggy Lee ("Every Time"), The Andrews Sisters ("Commoners Boogy"), Nat King Cole, Dean Martin, and Les Brown, among others.
His most famous song is arguably "Cruella de Vil" from the 1961 Disney animated feature One Hundred and One Dalmatians, which is claimed to have been written in homage to Thelonious Monk's "Ba-Lue Bolivar Ba-Lues-Are".
[1] That same year, he also wrote the story and new lyrics to sixteen tunes for the film Babes in Toyland.
A conservationist and talented fly fisherman, in retirement Leven traveled the world in pursuit of fish and became a beloved fixture along Northern California rivers in particular.
[2] He features prominently in the 2009 documentary Rivers of a Lost Coast, on the decline of the California steelhead population.