Clinton Elliott

1927 - 2023

Clinton Elliott, of Sarasota, Fla. and Tyringham, Mass., died on November 12, 2023. He was 96 and died at home in Florida of natural causes. Born in New York City in 1927, he attended Westminster School in Simsbury, Conn. and studied music at Yale University. He served in the Navy on a submarine chaser in the Philippines at the close of World War ll. Because of his sharp ears, he was assigned to the Navy's sonar section. He claimed he could tell a Japanese submarine from an American submarine from 25 miles away. He graduated from Yale in 1949 and continued his studies in musical composition in France with Nadia Boulanger and at Columbia University where he received an MA.

His professional life was mostly spent writing scores for documentary films for CBS and ABC. Among these were Mr. Dickens of London with Michael Redgrave, Hall of Kings with Michael and Lynn Redgrave, and Rachel Carson's The Sea Around Us. He also wrote for the pioneering television series Twentieth Century and Omnibus. He wrote two operas, Melanctha, based on a story by Gertrude Stein, and Pope Joan, with a book by Sloane Elliott, based on the novels of Emmanuel Rhoides. His many choral pieces have been published by MCA and other publishing houses.

He was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease in 1977, a diagnosis that turned out to be false but ended his musical career. He moved to Tyringham, Mass. where he was active in community affairs. During his many years as chairman of the Tyringham Historical Commission, he created an archive of local history including original research of which he was proud. He wrote Hidden Lives: A Collection of Gay Biographical Miniatures and recently completed The Male Witches of Salem, the first history to be written on the subject.

He was the son of Clinton Elliott and Margaret Sloane de Freygang of New York City, and brother of Sloane Elliott of Athens, who died in 2008. He is survived by his wife of 29 years, Elizabeth Bayard Hollins Aldrich; his three children from his earlier marriage to Varney Thompson who predeceased him, Susannah Elliott (Kim Novick) of Concord, Mass., John Alexander Manson Elliott of Sharon, Conn., and Rosemary Elliott of Philadelphia, Pa. With his first wife Nina Van Rensselaer, he had two children, Clinton Elliott Kelly and Katherine Van Rensselaer Heath, who predeceased him. He leaves nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.