This website is dedicated to the achievements of Oscar-winning, movie sound pioneer GEORGE ROBERT GROVES who originated from St.Helens in the north-west of England.
George Groves could boast numerous achievements. During the 1920s as a young engineer at Bell Laboratories in New York he played an influential role in developing the sound-on-disc technology used in the first sound motion pictures. His expertise as a sound recordist, production and music mixer was used on a great many of the early sound films including Don Juan, The Jazz Singer, The Singing Fool, Lights of New York and The Desert Song.In fact George Groves was the FIRST Production Recordist and the FIRST Music Mixer that the film industry ever had! George was the movie industry's first ever 'sound man' and was dubbed "The Quiet Little Englishman" by legendary performer Al Jolson who became his close friend.
George Groves who was responsible for the recording of The Jazz Singer and Lights of New York became the first production sound mixer. He was already the first film music mixer having previously recorded the score for Don Juan.
In a career with Warner Bros. which spanned almost half a century, George won three Oscars for Best Sound for his work on the classic films Yankee Doodle Dandy, Sayonara and My Fair Lady. George described My Fair Lady as "the love of my life" and received his Oscar in 1965 from Steve McQueen and Claudia Cardinale. In total George worked on THIRTY-TWO films that received Academy Award nominations for best sound. In 1957 he became Director of Sound at Warner Brothers and in 1972, the year of his retirement, George was awarded the prestigious Samuel L. Warner memorial award by the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers.
This site is also dedicated to the memory of George's proud sister, HILDA BARROW, who despite being in her nineties and in poor health, devoted the last years of her life to ensure that her brother's work received the recognition in cinema history that he richly deserved.