Well, more accurately, Bernstein was by now working on the film THE COURT JESTER at Paramount as a sort of amenuensis for Sylvia Fine (Mrs Danny Kaye) who could think up tunes for songs but had difficulty in writing the music down. Since this was at Paramount, he'd done this job as a favour to one of the heads of the music department there, a gentleman by the name of Roy Fjastad. Fjastad promised Bernstein a job
of composition if he'd help out on THE COURT JESTER. Bernstein accepted this because, as he himself said, "I liked Roy and I thought he was an honest man."
As it happened the next composition job to come up at Paramount were the two dances for the Egyptian court scenes in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. Fjastad, true to his word, got Bernstein that little composing assignment... which led eventually to him doing the whole film. The rest is history!
I must say, that of all the musical figures at Hollywood in those days, information on Roy Fjastad is sparse indeed. What else did he do? What became of him?
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