 Holmes graduated from Hollywood High School, studied music at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois and the Juilliard School in New York, before working with a number of bandleaders during the 1930s and early 1940s.These included Ernst Toch, Vincent Lopez, and Harry James, for whose band, he wrote "The Mole".After serving as a pilot and flying instructor, a lieutenant in the US Navy during the Second World War, he moved to Hollywood, where he was hired by MGM Music Studios as a house arranger and conductor.