Remembering Maury: Wife recalls life with musical arranger of animated holiday classics

Every year since 1964, the young and the young at heart watch the animated holiday classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer – thanks to Maury Laws. 

As the musical director, Laws arranged the music for the TV special, wrote the incidental score that bridges the songs, and conducted the orchestra.  The Rudolph movie has aired on network television every year since 1964, making it the longest-running special in TV history.  Johnny Marks wrote the song in 1949. 

Appleton is part of that story.

Forty years ago, Maury and Karen Laws decided to do something adventurous and move with their son from New York City to Appleton.  Although Maury died in 2019 at 95, Karen continues to live in the home they renovated near Lawrence University and was eager to share her memories.

Karen Krumm is a Wisconsin girl, born and raised in Kaukauna. Singing, dancing, and theater were her passions.  After graduating from UW-Madison, Karen moved to New York City, where she worked for almost 20 years at NBC, first as a tour guide and eventually as a producer, primarily on documentaries covering everything from fashion to war.  

Maury grew up in a poor rural area of North Carolina.  He began playing the guitar and singing country music at twelve.  By sixteen, he was a featured soloist with local bands. After serving in World War II, Laws performed throughout the U.S. and Canada, eventually settling in New York. Maury once told Karen that music saved his life, she remembers.

Maury and Karen first met in 1968. Karen described Maury as soft-spoken and serious, but with a really sharp wit. Their 20-year age difference was no issue, Karen recalls, except for one small matter.

“Maury always said that he did everything late and I did everything early, and we kind of met in the middle,” she says.

In New York, Laws worked as music director at Rankin-Bass for nearly 20 years, from 1964 until the early 1980s. While there, he composed and arranged music for many of the studio's animated specials and features.

Although Laws is best known for Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, his other credits include the animated TV specials The Little Drummer Boy (1968), Frosty the Snowman (1969), and ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (1974).  Maury once described Santa Claus is Coming to Town (1970) as his favorite. Laws was also involved in an animated TV adaptation of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien, which won a Peabody Award and was nominated for both a Grammy and an Emmy. 

His work has been performed by such famous artists as Fred Astaire, Danny Kaye, Angela Lansbury, Burl Ives, Danny Thomas, Art Carney, Judy Collins, John Houston, and Ethel Merman.    

After retiring from Rankin/Bass, Laws continued composing and arranging music for vocalists, jazz artists, and symphony orchestras. His talents as a composer, arranger, conductor, and musical director were on display in movies, on stage, and in symphony halls.  His extensive repertoire can be viewed at www.maury-laws.com.

“He loved music,” Karen says. “It truly, truly was the greatest love of his life.  He always described it as a mountain he had to climb.”

In 1985, when their son, John, was five, they decided to move to Wisconsin.

“I never imagined that I would return,” Karen says. “I loved New York. It was my home, and it’s where we met and were married. Our son was born there, and all of our show business friends were there. We just thought, why don’t we really do something adventurous and move back and raise our son here?” 

And so they did.

Maury and Karen Laws quickly became part of the local music and arts scene. 

Laws occasionally arranged and conducted musical pieces for the Fox Valley Symphony Orchestra. As a strong supporter of the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center, he wrote the pre-show fanfare for the PAC and composed a special piece for the center’s 10th anniversary. 

He also collaborated with Lawrence University. For years, Laws, along with Lawrence icon Fred Sturm and other local musicians, performed for the Fox Valley Arts Alliance concerts.   Laws composed the original music for the 2003 documentary film The Legend of Lambeau Field. He wrote the song "I’ll Remember Lambeau Field," which was sung by the Lawrence University Chorus. 

Karen filled her days with community service.  She served as president of the Fox Valley Symphony Orchestra Board for years. She was also involved in the Women’s Fund of the Fox Valley, Goodwill Industries, the Fox Cities Performing Arts Center, and the YMCA. In the 1980s, Karen was a special projects producer at WLUK-TV in Green Bay.

In 1995, both Maury and Karen collaborated with local artists and musicians to produce a 30-minute documentary titled  River Time of Appleton and the Fox River  about Appleton's early history.  Laws later arranged several of the musical selections for the Appleton North High School Band, where their son played the trumpet.

Thaldorf, then the director at Appleton North High School, remembered Maury saying he had never written for a band before.  “He was like, what do I do with a saxophone? And euphoniums? He was willing to learn and willing to take a chance. I thought that was cool.”

“He was sincere and low-key,” Thaldorf recalls. “And happy to be asked to participate and lend his expertise. I think he found a little bit of fame right here in Appleton.”

Laws was ultimately inducted into the Wisconsin Academy of Arts, Sciences, and Letters.

In 2011, Maury and Karen served as Grand Marshals for the Downtown Appleton Christmas Parade. Greg Otis, parade chairman at the time, got to know them both well. The couple frequented Basil’s Pub on West College Avenue, not far from their home near Lawrence University.  

“I’d go to Basil's every day for lunch, and they would come in there at least once a week and we’d sit together,” Otis says.

In 2016, Cory Chisel, a renowned Appleton musician, recorded a conversation with Maury in which they discussed his early days as a musician and his musical idols.   

The last thing Laws wrote was a piece for his son’s wedding, performed by a string quartet from the Fox Valley Symphony Orchestra.  Today, Karen travels often to Chicago to visit their son. 

Karen says the holiday season always brings back memories of Maury and his shows. 

“I was flipping through channels and one of his shows was on a couple of nights ago, and I thought, 'Oh, that’s nice,’” she says. “It wasn’t until we moved back here that we realized that people kept watching them.”

Check your local TV guide or streaming service for holiday specials starting in early December.  Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer will be shown on NBC at 7 p.m. on Dec. 5 and 11. The timing seems perfect since Maury Laws' birthday is on December 6.

Remembering Maury: Wife recalls life with musical arranger of animated holiday classics © 2025 by Carol Lenz is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0