- He is one of two film composers to have received four Oscar nominations in the same year, the other being Alfred Newman. Young achieved it twice, once in 1940 (the same year as Newman) and second time the next year, 1941.
- He composed the music for many of Cecil B. DeMille's sound films.
- Holds the record for most Oscar nominations received before winning an Academy Award. He received his 21st and 22nd nominations for the 29th Awards (calendar year 1956), for the music of the title song for Written on the Wind (1956) and the score for the Best Picture winner, Around the World in 80 Days (1956). He won for his score. Unfortunately, he died in November 1956, so his final triumph was posthumous.
- During his violinist career as a teenager, he performed in Saint Petersburg at a concert in which Tsar Nicholas II of Russia was present. The Tsar was so impressed with Young's performance that he invited him to perform privately for him and the Russian royal family.
- He worked frequently on films starring John Wayne, including two of his biggest hits, Reap the Wild Wind (1942) and The Quiet Man (1952).
- Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.
- Began performing solo violin with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of fifteen.
- Between 1939 and 1940, he recorded the first album of songs from The Wizard of Oz (1939) for Decca Records, a 20-minute 78-RPM set of eight of the songs. It eventually appeared on LP. The album featured Judy Garland with the Ken Darby Singers, but none of the film's other actors. It included "The Jitterbug", which had been cut from the film, but omitted "If I Were King of the Forest". It continued to sell into the late 1950s, but was eventually supplanted in the 1960s by MGM's 1956 45-minute LP taken directly from the soundtrack of the movie, which had been released to coincide with the film's first telecast.
- He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for Recording at 6363 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
- Paramount produced a promotional short about the musical scoring of the 1937 feature "Wells Fargo". Featured in the short were the movie's director Frank Lloyd, composer Victor Young, musical director Boris Morros and actors Bob Burns, Porter Hall, Frances Dee, and Joel McCrea. The short was narrated by Gayne Whitman.
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