- During his time with MGM, he backed numerous vocalists, including Judy Garland.
- After serving as a lieutenant in the US Navy during the Second World War, he moved to Hollywood, where he was hired by MGM Music Studios as a house arranger and conductor.
- In 1950, he relocated to New York and continued as a record producer for MGM, and later moved to United Artists.
- Holmes also wrote the theme song to the television series International Detective.
- After serving as a pilot and flying instructor, a lieutenant in the US Navy during the Second World War, he moved to Hollywood, where he was hired by MGM Music Studios as a house arranger and conductor.
- He worked with Ernst Toch, Vincent Lopez, and Harry James, for whose band he wrote "The Mole".
- In 1954 he made what is possibly his best known recording, a version of the theme to the film The High and the Mighty. It sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold. The song is known for its distinctive accompanying whistling, which was provided by Fred Lowery.
- He tried rock and R&B with his backing to the Impalas "Sorry (I Ran All the Way Home)".
- He was an American songwriter, composer, arranger, orchestra conductor and record producer.
- He moved to United Artists Records in the early 1960s, where he contributed to many compilations of movie themes.
- He also worked on the music for the 1977 film The Chicken Chronicles.
- Holmes provided the orchestration for Tommy Edwards epic 1958 hit "It's All In The Game".
- He released albums under his own name and backed a succession of singers, notably Connie Francis, Gloria Lynne, Shirley Bassey and Puerto Rican singers like Tito Rodríguez and Chucho Avellanet.
- Holmes graduated from Hollywood High School, studied music at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois and the Juilliard School in New York, before working with a number of bandleaders during the 1930s and early 1940s.
- Most notable of his recordings were a solid collection of Morricone tunes from spaghetti Westerns as For a Few Dollars More, as also the space age pop favorite, "Mah-nah Mah-nah.".
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