Meredith Willson
Meredith Willson was born in Mason City, Iowa, in 1902. He studied piano and flute at the Damrosch Institute of Musical Art, and by age 19 had become a solo flutist with the New York Philharmonic. He relocated to San Francisco in the mid 1920's, and quickly gained notoriety as the Music Director for KFRC, before becoming NBC's West Coast Music Director in 1932. He was also busy writing original compositions and early motion picture scores.
The above photos show him early in his career in the mid 1920s, and again in the late 1940s when he was also a nationally-known radio celebrity. He reached the peak of his career in the 1950s when he created the musical "Music Man".