Lord David Paul Nicholas Dundas is an English musician and actor, best known for his chart success in the pop genre during the 1970s as well as his later career in film and television scores.
Biography
Dundas was born in Oxford, the second son of Lawrence Dundas, 3rd Marquess of Zetland, and his wife Penelope Pike. As a younger son of a marquess, he is entitled to the courtesy title 'Lord'. He was educated at Harrow and the Central School of Speech and Drama. While at the Central School, Dundas shared a Camden Town house with actor Vivian MacKerrell and film director Bruce Robinson. The house on Albert Street had been bought by his parents for him to live in, eventually according to Dundas himself "15 people were living there - there were three bedrooms". Those years served as the basis for Robinson's unpublished memoir and the film Withnail & I. Dundas co-wrote the score for the film, considered "one of Britain's biggest cult films". On 17 December 1971, Dundas married Corinna Maeve Wolfe Scott, and they had two children:
Daisy Star
Thomas Harry Django
They divorced in 1995. Dundas then married Taina Bettina Breuckmann on 21 November 1997, and they have one son:
Finn Arthur Ebenezer
Musical career
His 1976 single "Jeans On" reached No. 3 in the UK Singles Chart, No. 17 on the US Billboard Hot 100, and No. 1 in the German Singles Chart, where the song remained 19 weeks in the Top Ten. The song originally appeared as a television advertising jingle for Brutus Jeans. The single was later sampled by Fatboy Slim for his track "Sho Nuff" which was also used in an advertisement in 2006 for SEAT Ibiza. Dundas's follow-up single, "Another Funny Honeymoon" was a medium-sized hit, reaching No. 29 in the UK. Dundas performed the song live on the BBC Television show, Top of the Pops, in 1977. A later single, "Where Were You Today", based on a C&A radio commercial was less successful. Jingles made by Dundas for Capital Radio were played daily on the station in the 1970s: "Grab a little piece of heaven, with Roger Scott from 3 to 7" and "Get a little soft rock, country, blues, with Tony Myatt from 11 to 2".
1986 'Gilding the Lily' — piano score in the style of Erik Satie for the iconic TV commercial for Simple skincare in which robotic arms spray a pristine white lily with colouring and perfume;
1987 Withnail and I, original score;
1989 Get Ready — for the rebranding of ITV by English Markell Pockett ;
c. 1993 Television commercials for the Kraft General Foods, Inc. product, "Country Time Lemonade Drink Mix" featured a Dundas composition called "I Keep Your Picture" as background music.
1998 — another ITV rebranding, under the title "Television from the Heart", for FutureBrand English & Pockett.
