Eleanor Aller

Who was Eleanor Aller?

Eleanor Aller was a world-renowned cellist and founding member, with her husband, Felix Slatkin, of the Hollywood String Quartet.

Born in New York City, she was the daughter of cellist Gregory Aller, a Jewish emigre from the Russian Empire. Eleanor Aller became principal cellist in the Warner Bros. Studio Orchestra in 1939, of which her brother, pianist Victor Aller, was orchestra manager and in which their father also played for a time. The same year she met and married Felix Slatkin. Shortly after their marriage, the couple founded the Hollywood String Quartet. Aller also continued working as a Hollywood studio musician. After Slatkin's death in 1963, in addition to her work with orchestras for movies, Aller played in orchestras for recordings done by Frank Sinatra, who had become a family friend over the years.

Aller continued to work as principal cellist for movie soundtracks, including a solo specially written for her by composer/conductor John Williams for the soundtrack to the 1977 Steven Spielberg movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Her two sons are the conductor Leonard Slatkin and the cellist Frederick Zlotkin.