Born on July 23, 1917 as Georgio Guariglia, he was an Italian-American pianist, conductor, composer, arranger, recording artist and record producer who is known for his extensive work across the spectrum of the entertainment industry. George was born in Westerly, Rhode Island, soon after his family emigrated from Italy. Most of the family’s members were musically gifted and could play many instruments. His father, James, had three music schools and a traveling orchestra. Georgio was taught to read music at an early age and was playing piano and mandolin when he was five. He often played four-handed piano pieces with his father, and they gave father-son recitals. He studied music at Columbia University, where he met and formed a long-time friendship with composer/arranger/bandleader Paul Weston, with whom Greeley worked in later years at Capitol Records and Columbia Records. Greeley won a scholarship to the Juilliard School in New York, where he studied piano and composition, graduating in 1939. He also studied music at the University of Southern California, and studied composition privately with Ernst Toch.

Starting as an arranger and pianist with several notable big bands in the 1940s, including the Abe Lyman and Tommy Dorsey bands, he segued into the Hollywood radio scene, working on several nationally broadcast variety programs. After conducting an Army Air Force Band during World War II, he was hired by Columbia Pictures as a staff pianist and orchestrator. He worked as pianist on several hundred motion pictures, worked with many famous composers orchestrating their soundtrack compositions, and created original compositions of his own in several dozen movies.

As orchestrator, Greeley would fill out the sketches supplied by composers that included Max Steiner, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Leonard Bernstein, and Dimitri Tiomkin. As pianist, he performed on about two hundred motion pictures, including Picnic and The Eddy Duchin Story. He also worked as a composer. IMDb lists some twenty movies between 1949 and 1960 for which George Greeley is credited as composer of original music, including the 1957 film Hellcats of the Navy starring Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis, Good Day For a Hanging, and The Guns of Fort Petticoat, starring Audie Murphy. Several films of which Greeley was especially proud included working as pianist on the Leonard Bernstein score for the 1954 drama On the Waterfront; and coaching Tyrone Power for The Eddy Duchin Story. In addition to performing the soundtrack songs when Eddy Duchin played (uncredited), it was Greeley’s hands that performed the piano parts which Power mimed during filming.

Concurrent with his work at Columbia Pictures, Greeley worked for Capitol Records, where he was a music director, arranger, and conductor for various artists including Gordon MacRae, Dean Martin, Ella Logan, Tony Martin, Jane Powell, Jane Froman, and Keely Smith. At the behest of his friend Paul Weston, Greeley also played piano (and harpsichord) on recording sessions for acts including Frankie Laine, Jo Stafford, Hoagy Carmichael, Sarah Vaughan, Eartha Kitt, and Doris Day. Many of those recordings have been now re-mastered and re-issued as CDs.

George was among the earliest artists signed to the Warner Bros. Records label when it was founded in the late 1950s, and he was instrumental in providing that company with the same elegant instrumental pop sounds that Billy Vaughn brought to Dot Records and Percy Faith brought to Columbia Records.^[9] As a recording artist for Warner Bros. Records, Greeley produced and performed as pianist (and as conductor) on fourteen popular albums between 1957 and 1967. His first album, The World’s Greatest Popular Piano Concertos became Warner Bros. biggest hit to date, and Greeley’s subsequent recordings were also hits for the label. Regarding the use of the phrase “Piano Concertos,” Greeley stated that he hated the term, but Jim Conkling, the boss of the new Warner Bros. Records felt that the term sounded classy. The musicians performing with Greeley were an all-star collection of free lancers billed for publicity’s sake as the “Warner Bros. Orchestra.”

Greeley said “because I was playing piano, I called some of my friends to come and conduct.” Those friends included Felix Slatkin, Harry Bluestone, Ray Heindorf, and Ted Dale. Greeley’s 1961 album for Warner Bros. Records, The Best of the Popular Piano Concertos, peaked at number 29 on the Billboard 200. On loan to Dot Records, he also ghost-conducted albums by Billy Vaughn and Lawrence Welk. As music tastes changed in the late 1960s, Greeley had already moved into television, composing themes and music for popular TV series like My Favorite Martian, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, Nanny and the Professor, and Small Wonder. .

In addition to his film and TV work, Greeley performed as a piano soloist and guest conductor in Montreal, Korea, and Rio de Janeiro. In 1957 he did an extensive concert tour of South America, and conducted the Argentine Symphony in Buenos Aires. Greeley participated in six television variety shows when touring in Australia. In the States, among his televised concert appearances, Greeley was guest pianist on Chicago’s WGN-TV series titled “Great Music from Chicago.” In 1962 Greeley appeared as piano soloist with Robert Trendler conducting a program of American music. Then, appearing on the same series as piano soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1964, he performed Aram Khachaturian‘s “Sabre Dance, Ferde Grofe’s “On the Trail” from his Grand Canyon Suite, and other works.In 1975, Greeley performed as guest pianist with the Boston Pops Orchestra, playing George Gershwin‘s Concerto in F under Arthur Fiedler’s baton.George Greeley also performed as guest pianist with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. At the time of Greeley’s death on May 26, 2007, Jon Burlingame. who was a USC professor teaching a class on the history of film scoring, stated that Greeley was an “extraordinary pianist.”

George Greeley was inducted into The Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame in 2024.