Working Night and Day

As musical director of RKO, Steiner oversaw music in all of the studio’s productions. At the same time, he was writing full scores for RKO’s most important releases. Workaholic by nature, Max loved the creative challenges dictated by such future film classics as Of Human Bondage and John Ford’s The Lost Patrol (a failure when previewed, until Steiner’s music added the missing element of tension). But his round-the-clock schedule was pushing the 46-year-old toward collapse. Finally, during the exhausting production of The Gay Divorcee, starring Astaire and Rogers, Steiner snapped, writing a sarcastic memo to RKO president B. B. Kahane. The twist-filled story of Steiner’s firing and rehiring is told here for the first time. Work was not Max’s only source of anxiety: Adolf Hitler was now chancellor of Germany, and Steiner feared for the safety of his parents in nearby Austria.