Many details about Lamkoff's early life prior to emigrating to the United States are uncorroborated, including his place of birth and his musical training, and professional engagements. His place of birth is listed variously as either Poland or Russia. He was said to have trained at the Petrograd Conservatory (now the
St. Petersburg Conservatory), possibly at the same time as future fellow Hollywood composer Dimitrio Tiomkin and also under Glazunov and Rimsky-Korsakov. He may have conducted opera throughout eastern Europe, and played violin with the
Moscow Symphony Orchestra, and cantored. The popularity of "
talkies" that exploded in the late 1920s allowed the professional musicians already established in Los Angeles, like Lamkoff, to profit on the burgeoning film music industry, although much of Lamkoff's work went uncredited. At one point he transcribed "by dictation" a symphonic work that
Fred Fisher was composing for a film sequence. Along with other talents like
Alfred Newman,
Johnny Green, and
Ray Heindorf, he established the practice of major film studios' music departments being led by professional musicians. Lamkoff is said to have been among the first to compose original music score for a Hollywood film, when he composed and copyrighted eight cues for the 1929
Lionel Barrymore film
The Mysterious Island (though credit went to Martin Broones and
Arthur Lange). Both he and
Dimitri Tiomkin, a fellow graduate of St. Petersburg Conservatory, were working at MGM in 1930. Lamkoff orchestrated Tiomkin's Lullaby and Gypsy Song for the film
Resurrection. In the 1930s he served as cantor and choral director in many Los Angeles organizations, including for Temple Beth El in Hollywood, and in
Joseph Achron's Los Angeles chapter of MAILAMM. Lamkoff was actively involved overseas during
World War II. The unpublished compositions
Delia, Delia, From Manila and
Down Leyte Way were copyrighted from Australia and from a US/APO warship address. Outside of film music, Lamkoff's compositions include a 1944 symphony titled
Survival of a Nation, a set of Hebrew songs for voice and
piano published in 1929, a
Solomon Golub setting written for the United Hebrew Choral Societies of the United States and Canada in 1923, many Yiddish songs (some of which were championed by
Sidor Belarsky), and many songs written for hire. In 1931, he married Sidon Goldman Kraus, who was born in Hlohovec, Hungary in 1887 and died in 1972. == Selected filmography ==