Leo F. Forbstein

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Leo Frank Forbstein (October 16, 1892 – March 16, 1948) was an American film musical director and orchestra conductor who worked on more than 550 projects during a twenty-year period.

Forbstein was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He was attracted to music as a child, learning the violin at the age of four. As a conductor at the Royal Theater in St. Joseph, he synchronized the orchestra with the action in silent films; he then became principal conductor at the Newman Theatre in Kansas City, where the organist was future Warner Bros. colleague Carl W. Stalling. In the mid-1920s, Forbstein relocated to Hollywood to head the symphony orchestra at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre.