This post features an unusual hand-drawn cachet featuring the 2004 United States stamp honoring the composer, songwriter, and conductor Henry Mancini. He was especially well known for his compositions for films and television, winning four Academy Awards and twenty Grammy Awards. Many of Mancini’s most famous compositions are jazz favorites, you can learn more about other jazz musicians here. The first-day cover has an attractive, unsigned decoration, perhaps suggesting that it is a one-of-a-kind, or limited, cachet. The cachet is a fun addition to my small collection of decorative cachets.
Henry Mancini
The American composer Henry Mancini was born in Maple Heights, Ohio, in 1924 and raised near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, by his Italian-immigrant parents. Mancini began playing the piccolo at the age of eight and he later studied the piano. His amazing talents were apparent early, in high school he studied orchestral arrangement under the conductor Max Adkins. The young Mancini’s arrangements were played by the Stanley Theater bands and one was even used by the up-and-coming bandleader Benny Goodman. After graduating high school in 1942, Mancini went to what would later become Carnegie Mellon University. He was not there long, transferring that same year to the Juilliard School of Music in New York.
Mancini turned 18 in 1943, during World War II. He enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces and was eventually assigned to the 1306th Engineers Brigade in France and would be among the liberators of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp.
While in bootcamp, Mancini met the musician Glenn Miller. After the war, Mancini became a pianist and arrange for the great bandleader. In 1952, he joined the music staff of Universal-International film company (now Universal). He began writing music for movies and in his early career wrote music for such films as Creature from the Black lagoon, It Came from Outer Space, and Tarantula. At that time he also wrote pop songs, gaining his first hit with the single “I Won’t Let You Out of My Heart,” recorded by Guy Lombardo and His Royal Canadians.
Later Career
In 1958, Mancini left the studio, believing he could do better as an independent composer and arranger. He seemed to be right as it was soon after he left that he wrote the theme song to the television series Peter Gunn. Mancini was at the forefront of adopting jazz into film and television music, instead of just the romantic-era classical music that were predominant in earlier films. His list of hits was enormous including such classic songs as “Moon River” (from the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s), and the themes to Days of Wine and Roses and The Pink Panther.
He was enormously successful and recorded over 90 albums with music that ranged from big band to classical to pop. Eight of the albums were certified gold by the Recording Industry Association. He became a household name and his popularity led to him becoming a concert performing, conducting orchestras across the globe. He conducted more than 600 symphonic performances during his lifetime, including appearances with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic, the Boston Pops, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He even had three common performances for the British Royal Family. Mancini died of pancreatic cancer in 1994 while working on a Broadway stage version of Victor/Victoria.
The Stamp
Scott Number 3839
The postage stamp honoring Mancini features a full color painting of the composer by the artist Victor Stabin. It captures Mancini while he conducting. Behind him is a list of some of his most famous film and television music. In the lower left corner is an image of the Pink Panther pointing towards Mancini. A kind of subtle, but cool, part of the stamp design is that if you look at the bottom of the stamp you see the silhouettes of people looking up at the stamp. It suggests that they are in a movie theater and watching one of Mancini’s great films. The design for the stamp is by Carl T. Herman of Carlsbad, California.
The cachet is a first day cover, cancelled in Los Angeles, California on April 13, 2004. Wonderfully, there is a colorful hand-drawn decoration on the bottom left hand side of the envelope. It features Mancini in a tuxedo with a bright pink bowtie. Standing next to Mancini is the Pink Panther dressed in a matching tuxedo and tie. The Panther is smiling and his arm is around Mancini, touching the back of his head, behind his ear. It is a fun cachet and like the stamp, the presence of the Pink Panther adds an element of light-hearted fun, while also being a reminder of what is probably Mancini’s most famous piece of music.
Here is a fun concert version of the Pink Panthe. Enjoy!
