Giant

Dimitri Zinovievich Tiomkin was a Russian-born Hollywood film score composer and conductor. He is considered "one of the giants of Hollywood movie... music." Musically trained in Russia, he is best known for his westerns, "where his expansive, muscular style had its greatest impact." Tiomkin received 22 Academy Award nominations and won four Oscars. Dimitri Tiomkin was born in Kremenchuk, Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. His family was of Jewish descent, with his father a "distinguished pathologist" and associate of Professor Paul Ehrlich, the inventor and Nobel laureate noted for discovering a cure for syphilis and for his research in autoimmunity, later becoming chemotherapy. His mother was a musician who began teaching the young Tiomkin piano at an early age. Her hope was to have her son become a professional pianist, according to Tiomkin biographer, Christopher Palmer. Tiomkin described his mother as being "small, blonde, merry and vivacious.
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Marfa is a town in the high desert of far West Texas. Located between the Davis Mountains and Big Bend National Park, it is also the county seat of Presidio County. The population was 1,981 at the 2010 census. Marfa was founded in the early 1880s as a railroad water stop, and grew quickly through... the 1920s. Marfa Army Airfield was located east of the town during World War II and trained several thousand pilots before closing in 1945 east of the city. The base was also used as the training ground for many of the U.S. Army's Chemical mortar battalions. The Marfa AAF and Fort D.A. Russell were not related; Fort D.A. Russell was located on the southwestern part of town where Chinati is. Despite its small size, today Marfa is a tourist destination. Attractions include the historical architecture and classic Texas town square, modern art at the Chinati Foundation and in galleries around town, and the Marfa lights. The Handbook of Texas states that the wife of a railroad executive reportedly suggested the name "Marfa" after reading the name in the Fyodor Dostoevsky novel The Brothers Karamazov.
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