His marriage to Judy Garland dissolved after Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM, insisted that Judy have an abortion to avoid damaging her
"girl-next-door" image with the movie-going public. This emotionally
scarred Judy and doomed her marriage to Rose.
His estate in California included one of the largest private steam
collections, including a small scale railroad track around his home
Rose composed the music to the Michael Landon series "Highway to Heaven" (1984-1989).
Wrote the song "The Stripper". The recording by David Rose and His Orchestra debuted on Billboard's pop music chart on 12 May 1962 and remained on the chart for a total of 17 weeks. It reached #1 on 7 July 1962. The recording also reached #1 on Cash Box magazine's pop music chart.
He was the musical director of The Red Skelton Hour (1951) / "The Red Skelton Comedy Hour". He was also the composer of the tune, "Holiday
For Strings", the theme music for show.