Jon Mirsalis

Jon C. Mirsalis is a scientist, film historian and silent film accompanist who has been creating silent film scores for over 40 years. He has performed at many venues throughout the U.S. including the George Eastman House, the Library of Congress, the Castro Theater in San Francisco, the Cleveland Cinematheque, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and Pacific Film Archive. He regularly performs at the Niles Film Museum and the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. He has recorded scores for many video releases for Kino International, Milestone Films, Flicker Alley, Turner Classic Movies, and other distributors. Some of his released scores include "Othello," "The Mark of Zorro," "Don Q, Son of Zorro," "A Little Princess," "The Ocean Waif," "The Phantom of the Opera," (1925) "Woman in the Moon," "The Man from Beyond," and many short subjects. He composed and performed the score for "Anna May Wong: Frosted Yellow Willows" (2007), a documentary about actress Anna May Wong. Mirsalis is also a noted expert on the silent screen star Lon Chaney, and manages the web site lonchaney. He also has consulted for and assisted with film preservation projects by the Library of Congress, UCLA Film Archives, and other major film archives. He is perhaps best known as the person who found the missing reel of Laurel & Hardy's comedy short, "The Battle of the Century" (1927). In his day job, Dr. Mirsalis has Ph.D. degrees in toxicology and genetics, and is a Vice President in the Biosciences Division at SRI International in Menlo Park, CA.