Au Revoir and Bonjour

This chapter focuses on transitions both personal and creative for Steiner. After his divorce from Louise, Max found happiness with a new companion, former singer Lee Blair. The end of World War II marked a change in Hollywood filmmaking styles, and Steiner responded to the darker, more mature movies being produced at Warner Bros. with a leaner, less Wagnerian style. Film noir titles like Howard Hawks’s The Big Sleep and Michael Curtiz’s Mildred Pierce benefited greatly from Max’s scoring, which added propulsive energy and extra layers of character illumination. But Steiner’s obsession with work, and his late-night gambling with friends like composer Victor Young, distracted Max from a growing problem at home: the erratic behavior of his emotionally troubled son, Ronald.