The Bowl presentation is part of an exploding live-to-picture concert trend, joining the original “Star Wars” film, “The Empire Strikes Back” and “Jaws” in this season’s lineup. “They were little boys who never grew up, and that comes out in every piece that they did together.” “He played it worldwide and loved every note.” “Everybody just lit up when the theme started to play,” said Ginny Mancini, the composer’s wife of 47 years. Mancini was nominated for an Oscar and won three Grammys for the score, and the slinky saxophone theme became a staple in hundreds of orchestra concerts he conducted around the world. Mancini, Edwards and comic actor Peter Sellers, who created the endearingly inept Inspector Clouseau, were indelibly linked to the farce, which starred David Niven as a jewel thief on the prowl for a diamond known as the Pink Panther because of its color and a catlike blemish. How perfect, then, that the 1963 Blake Edwards film that spawned it, “The Pink Panther,” will screen at the Bowl on Wednesday, with Mancini’s swinging score performed live by the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra - in a way most have never heard before.
Mancini conducted at the Bowl 29 times before his death in 1994, and “The Pink Panther Theme” became one of his calling cards. When the band finishes, the cartoon cuts to Mancini himself, in live action, applauding out in the bleachers. He selects, in meta fashion, “The Pink Panther Theme” by Henry Mancini.
In the 1966 “Pink Panther” cartoon short “Pink, Plunk, Plink,” the limber leopard tries his hand at conducting onstage at the Hollywood Bowl.
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