MUSIC COMPOSERS for film and television: StuOz Favourites
I list about loud old school scores or theme tunes, mostly done for science fiction related material and disaster related movies.
Link to a video I made about Japanese Sci-Fi movies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bLZ4Oo8Nn4
Link to a video I made about 1966 Batman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3knqB3rkGR4
Link to a video I made about Japanese Sci-Fi movies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8bLZ4Oo8Nn4
Link to a video I made about 1966 Batman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3knqB3rkGR4
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As one of the best known, awarded, and financially successful composers in US history, John Williams is as easy to recall as John Philip Sousa, Aaron Copland or Leonard Bernstein, illustrating why he is "America's composer" time and again. With a massive list of awards that includes over 52 Oscar nominations (five wins), twenty-odd Gold and Platinum Records, and a slew of Emmy (two wins), Golden Globe (three wins), Grammy (25 wins), National Board of Review (including a Career Achievement Award), Saturn (six wins), American Film Institute (including a Lifetime Achievement Award) and BAFTA (seven wins) citations, along with honorary doctorate degrees numbering in the teens, Williams is undoubtedly one of the most respected composers for Cinema. He's led countless national and international orchestras, most notably as the nineteenth conductor of the Boston Pops Orchestra from 1980-1993, helming three Pops tours of the US and Japan during his tenure. He currently serves as the Pop's Conductor Laureate. Also to his credit is a parallel career as an author of serious, and some not-so-serious, concert works - performed by the likes of Mstislav Rostropovich, André Previn, Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Gil Shaham, Leonard Slatkin, James Ingram, Dale Clevenger, and Joshua Bell. Of particular interests are his Essay for Strings, a jazzy Prelude & Fugue, the multimedia presentation American Journey (aka The Unfinished Journey (1999)), a Sinfonietta for Winds, a song cycle featuring poems by Rita Dove, concerti for flute, violin, clarinet, trumpet, tuba, cello, bassoon and horn, fanfares for the 1984, 1988 and 1996 Summer Olympics, the 2002 Winter Olympics, and a song co-written with Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman for the Special Olympics! But such a list probably warrants a more detailed background...
Born in Flushing, New York on February 8, 1932, John Towner Williams discovered music almost immediately, due in no small measure to being the son of a percussionist for CBS Radio and the Raymond Scott Quintet. After moving to Los Angeles in 1948, the young pianist and leader of his own jazz band started experimenting with arranging tunes; at age 15, he determined he was going to become a concert pianist; at 19, he premiered his first original composition, a piano sonata.
He attended both UCLA and the Los Angeles City College, studying orchestration under MGM musical associate Robert Van Eps and being privately tutored by composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, until conducting for the first time during three years with the U.S. Air Force. His return to the states brought him to Julliard, where renowned piano pedagogue Madame Rosina Lhevinne helped Williams hone his performance skills. He played in jazz clubs to pay his way; still, she encouraged him to focus on composing. So it was back to L.A., with the future maestro ready to break into the Hollywood scene.
Williams found work with the Hollywood studios as a piano player, eventually accompanying such fare such as the TV series Peter Gunn (1958), South Pacific (1958), Some Like It Hot (1959), The Apartment (1960), and To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), as well as forming a surprising friendship with Bernard Herrmann. At age 24, "Johnny Williams" became a staff arranger at Columbia and then at 20th Century-Fox, orchestrating for Alfred Newman and Lionel Newman, Dimitri Tiomkin, Franz Waxman, and other Golden Age notables. In the field of popular music, he performed and arranged for the likes of Vic Damone, Doris Day, and Mahalia Jackson... all while courting actress/singer Barbara Ruick, who became his wife until her death in 1974. John & Barbara had three children; their daughter is now a doctor, and their two sons, Joseph Williams and Mark Towner Williams, are rock musicians.
The orchestrating gigs led to serious composing jobs for television, notably Alcoa Premiere (1961), Checkmate (1960), Gilligan's Island (1964), Lost in Space (1965), Land of the Giants (1968), and his Emmy-winning scores for Heidi (1968) and Jane Eyre (1970). Daddy-O (1958) and Because They're Young (1960) brought his original music to the big theatres, but he was soon typecast doing comedies. His efforts in the genre helped guarantee his work on William Wyler's How to Steal a Million (1966), however, a major picture that immediately led to larger projects. Of course, his arrangements continued to garner attention, and he won his first Oscar for adapting Fiddler on the Roof (1971).
During the '70s, he was King of Disaster Scores with The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Earthquake (1974) and The Towering Inferno (1974). His psychological score for Images (1972) remains one of the most innovative works in soundtrack history. But his Americana - particularly The Reivers (1969) - is what caught the ear of director Steven Spielberg, then preparing for his first feature, The Sugarland Express (1974). When Spielberg reunited with Williams on Jaws (1975), they established themselves as a blockbuster team, the composer gained his first Academy Award for Original Score, and Spielberg promptly recommended Williams to a friend, George Lucas. In 1977, John Williams re-popularized the epic cinema sound of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Franz Waxman and other composers from the Hollywood Golden Age: Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) became the best selling score-only soundtrack of all time, and spawned countless musical imitators. For the next five years, though the music in Hollywood changed, John Williams wrote big, brassy scores for big, brassy films - The Fury (1978), Superman (1978), 1941 (1979), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) ... An experiment during this period, Heartbeeps (1981), flopped. There was a long-term change of pace, nonetheless, as Williams fell in love with an interior designer and married once more.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) brought about his third Oscar, and The River (1984), Empire of the Sun (1987), The Accidental Tourist (1988) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989) added variety to the 1980s, as he returned to television with work on Amazing Stories (1985) and themes for NBC, including NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (1970). The '80s also brought the only exceptions to the composer's collaboration with Steven Spielberg - others scored both Spielberg's segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983) and The Color Purple (1985).
Intending to retire, the composer's output became sporadic during the 1990s, particularly after the exciting Jurassic Park (1993) and the masterful, Oscar-winning Schindler's List (1993). This lighter workload, coupled with a number of hilarious references on The Simpsons (1989) actually seemed to renew interest in his music. Two Home Alone films (1990, 1992), JFK (1991), Nixon (1995), Sleepers (1996), Seven Years in Tibet (1997), Saving Private Ryan (1998), Angela's Ashes (1999), and a return to familiar territory with Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) recalled his creative diversity of the '70s.
In this millennium, the artist shows no interest in slowing down. His relationships with Spielberg and Lucas continue in A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), the remaining Star Wars prequels (2002, 2005), Minority Report (2002), Catch Me If You Can (2002), and a promised fourth Indiana Jones film. There is a more focused effort on concert works, as well, including a theme for the new Walt Disney Concert Hall and a rumored light opera. But one certain highlight is his musical magic for the world of Harry Potter (2001, 2002, 2004, etc.), which he also arranged into a concert suite geared toward teaching children about the symphony orchestra. His music remains on the whistling lips of people around the globe, in the concert halls, on the promenades, in album collections, sports arenas, and parades, and, this writer hopes, touching some place in ourselves. So keep those ears ready wherever you go, 'cause you will likely hear a bit of John Williams on your way.One of my three favourite film/TV composers of all time (the other two being Jerry Goldsmith and Bernard Herrmann). From 1965 (Lost In Space) to 2005 (War Of The Worlds), Williams did 40 years of simply wonderful music for Irwin Allen TV science fiction, a few 70s disaster movies, Superman, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, etc. He did not die or vanish in 2005 but simply stopped doing great scores in 2005.- Music Department
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Born on February 10, 1929, Jerry Goldsmith studied piano with Jakob Gimpel and composition, theory, and counterpoint with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. He also attended classes in film composition given by Miklós Rózsa at the Univeristy of Southern California. In 1950, he was employed as a clerk typist in the music department at CBS. There, he was given his first embryonic assignments as a composer for radio shows such as "Romance" and "CBS Radio Workshop". He wrote one score a week for these shows, which were performed live on transmission. He stayed with CBS until 1960, having already scored The Twilight Zone (1959). He was hired by Revue Studios to score their series Thriller (1960). It was here that he met the influential film composer Alfred Newman who hired Goldsmith to score the film Lonely Are the Brave (1962), his first major feature film score. An experimentalist, Goldsmith constantly pushed forward the bounds of film music: Planet of the Apes (1968) included horns blown without mouthpieces and a bass clarinetist fingering the notes but not blowing. He was unafraid to use the wide variety of electronic sounds and instruments which had become available, although he did not use them for their own sake.
He rose rapidly to the top of his profession in the early to mid-1960s, with scores such as Freud (1962), A Patch of Blue (1965) and The Sand Pebbles (1966). In fact, he received Oscar nominations for all three and another in the 1960s for Planet of the Apes (1968). From then onwards, his career and reputation was secure and he scored an astonishing variety of films during the next 30 years or so, from Patton (1970) to Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) and from Chinatown (1974) to The Boys from Brazil (1978). He received 17 Oscar nominations but won only once, for The Omen (1976) in 1977 (Goldsmith himself dismissed the thought of even getting a nomination for work on a "horror show"). He enjoyed giving concerts of his music and performed all over the world, notably in London, where he built up a strong relationship with London Symphony Orchestra.
Jerry Goldsmith died at age 75 on July 21, 2004 after a long battle with cancer.One of my three favourite film/TV composers of all time. The Twilight Zone (Original Series), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (one TV episode), Our Man Flint, In Like Flint, Planet Of the Apes, Escape From The Planet Of The Apes, The Omen, Damien Omen 2, The Swarm, Capricorn One, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Twilight Zone: The Movie, Air Force One, etc.- Music Department
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The man behind the low woodwinds that open Citizen Kane (1941), the shrieking violins of Psycho (1960), and the plaintive saxophone of Taxi Driver (1976) was one of the most original and distinctive composers ever to work in film. He started early, winning a composition prize at the age of 13 and founding his own orchestra at the age of 20. After writing scores for Orson Welles's radio shows in the 1930s (including the notorious 1938 "The War of the Worlds" broadcast), he was the obvious choice to score Welles's film debut, Citizen Kane (1941), and, subsequently, The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), although he removed his name from the latter after additional music was added without his (or Welles's) consent when the film was mutilated by a panic-stricken studio. Herrmann was a prolific film composer, producing some of his most memorable work for Alfred Hitchcock, for whom he wrote nine scores. A notorious perfectionist and demanding (he once said that most directors didn't have a clue about music, and he blithely ignored their instructions--like Hitchcock's suggestion that Psycho (1960) have a jazz score and no music in the shower scene). He ended his partnership with Hitchcock after the latter rejected his score for Torn Curtain (1966) on studio advice. He was also an early experimenter in the sounds used in film scores, most famously The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), scored for two theremins, pianos, and a horn section; and was a consultant on the electronic sounds created by Oskar Sala on the mixtrautonium for The Birds (1963). His last score was for Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976) and died just hours after recording it. He also wrote an opera, "Wuthering Heights", and a cantata, "Moby Dick".One of my three favourite composers of all time. Like most people, I know him for his work on the Hitchcock films. He scored many of them and when his was not used, such as in the case of the famed Rear Window, this became painfully obvious to me! I would even say it made movies like Rear Window less special to me. In the 50s Herrmann scored several 20th Century Fox movies and this brought life to such mundane material as Beneath The 12 Mile Reef and Garden Of Evil. Thankfully, in the 60s, the "Reef" and "Evil" scores were pinched by Fox's Irwin Allen and used in TV shows such as Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost In Space and The Time Tunnel. His The Day The Earth Stood Still score was also pinched by Irwin Allen. One of Herrmann's best and most under-rated scores ever was for Columbia's Mysterious Island (1961) - the wildly rich score brought life to a routine flick.- Music Department
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Alexander Courage was born on 10 December 1919 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. He was a composer and actor, known for Star Trek (1966), Jurassic Park (1993) and Star Trek: Generations (1994). He was married to Shirley Pumpelly. He died on 15 May 2008 in Pacific Palisades, California, USA.Star Trek Original Series,
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,
Doctor Doolittle,
Jurassic Park.
(Note: To me atleast, the guy is best known for his science fiction scores but, when interviewed, he made it very clear that he has no interest in science fiction??).- Music Department
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Leith Stevens was born on 13 September 1909 in Mount Moriah, Missouri, USA. He was a composer and actor, known for The War of the Worlds (1953), Destination Moon (1950) and Julie (1956). He was married to Mary McCoy and Elizabeth Stevens. He died on 23 July 1970 in Los Angeles, California, USA.Lost In Space (Blast Off Into Space),
The Time Tunnel (Reign Of Terror),
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,
Destination Moon,
War Of The Worlds (1953 version),
Twilight Zone Original Series.
(Note: He scored some of the great colour Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea episodes like Time Bomb, A Time To Die, No Way Back, Blow Up, etc).- Music Department
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John Barry was born in York, England in 1933, and was the youngest of three children. His father, Jack, owned several local cinemas and by the age of fourteen, Barry was capable of running the projection box on his own - in particular, The Rialto in York. As he was brought up in a cinematic environment, he soon began to assimilate the music which accompanied the films he saw nightly to a point when, even before he'd left St. Peters school, he had decided to become a film music composer. Helped by lessons provided locally on piano and trumpet, followed by the more exacting theory taught by tutors as diverse as Dr Francis Jackson of York Minster and William Russo, formerly arranger to Stan Kenton and His Orchestra, he soon became equipped to embark upon his chosen career, but had no knowledge of how one actually got a start in the business. A three year sojourn in the army as a bandsman combined with his evening stints with local jazz bands gave him the idea to ease this passage by forming a small band of his own. This was how The John Barry Seven came into existence, and Barry successfully launched them during 1957 via a succession of tours and TV appearances. A recording contract with EMI soon followed, and although initial releases made by them failed to chart, Barry's undoubted talent showed enough promise to influence the studio management at Abbey Road in allowing him to make his debut as an arranger and conductor for other artists on the EMI roster.
A chance meeting with a young singer named Adam Faith, whilst both were appearing on astage show version of the innovative BBC TV programme, Six-Five Special (1957), led Barry to recommend Faith for a later BBC TV series, Drumbeat (1959), which was broadcast in 1959. Faith had made two or three commercially unsuccessful records before singer/songwriter Johnny Worth, also appearing on Drumbeat, offered him a song he'd just finished entitled What Do You Want? With the assistance of the JB7 pianist, Les Reed, Barry contrived an arrangement considered suited to Faith's soft vocal delivery, and within weeks, the record was number one. Barry (and Faith) then went from strength to strength; Faith achieving a swift succession of chart hits, with Barry joining him soon afterwards when the Seven, riding high on the wave of the early sixties instrumental boom, scored with Hit & Miss, Walk Don't Run and Black Stockings.
Faith had long harboured ambitions to act even before his first hit record and was offered a part in the up and coming British movie, Wild for Kicks (1960), at that time. As Barry was by then arranging not only his recordings but also his live Drumbeat material, it came as no surprise when the film company asked him to write the score to accompany Faith's big screen debut. It should be emphasised that the film was hardly a cinematic masterpiece. However, it did give Faith a chance to demonstrate his acting potential, and Barry the chance to show just how quickly he'd mastered the technique of film music writing. Although the film and soundtrack album were both commercial successes, further film score offers failed to flood in. On those that did, such as Never Let Go (1960) and The Amorous Mr. Prawn (1962), Barry proved highly inventive, diverse and adaptable and, as a result, built up a reputation as an emerging talent. It was with this in mind that Noel Rogers, of United Artists Music, approached him in the summer of '62, with a view to involving him in the music for the forthcoming James Bond film, Dr. No (1962).
He was also assisted onto the cinematic ladder as a result of a burgeoning relationship with actor/writer turned director Bryan Forbes, who asked him to write a couple of jazz numbers for use in a club scene in Forbes' then latest film, The L-Shaped Room (1962). From this very modest beginning, the couple went on to collaborate on five subsequent films, including the highly acclaimed Seance on a Wet Afternoon (1964), King Rat (1965) and The Whisperers (1967). Other highlights from the sixties included five more Bond films, Zulu (1964), Born Free (1966) (a double Oscar), The Lion in Winter (1968) (another Oscar) and Midnight Cowboy (1969).
In the seventies he scored the cult film Walkabout (1971), The Last Valley (1971), Mary, Queen of Scots (1971) (Oscar nomination), wrote the theme for The Persuaders! (1971), a musical version of Alice's Adventures In Wonderland and the hit musical Billy. Then, in 1974, he made the decision to leave his Thameside penthouse apartment for the peace of a remote villa he was having built in Majorca. He had been living there for about a year, during which time he turned down all film scoring opportunities, until he received an invitation to write the score for the American TV movie, Eleanor and Franklin (1976). In order to accomplish the task, he booked into the Beverly Hills Hotel for six weeks in October 1975. However, during this period, he was also offered Robin and Marian (1976) and King Kong (1976), which caused his stay to be extended. He was eventually to live and work in the hotel for almost a year, as more assignments were offered and accepted. His stay on America's West Coast eventually lasted almost five years, during which time he met and married his wife, Laurie, who lived with him at his Beverly Hills residence. They moved to Oyster Bay, New York and have since split their time between there and a house in Cadogan Square, London.
After adopting a seemingly lower profile towards the end of the seventies, largely due to the relatively obscure nature of the commissions he accepted, the eighties saw John Barry re-emerge once more into the cinematic limelight. This was achieved, not only by continuing to experiment and diversify, but also by mixing larger budget commissions of the calibre of Body Heat (1981), Jagged Edge (1985), Out of Africa (1985) (another Oscar) and The Cotton Club (1984) with smaller ones such as the TV movies, Touched by Love (1980) and Svengali (1983). Other successes included: Somewhere in Time (1980), Frances (1982), three more Bond films, and Peggy Sue Got Married (1986).
After serious illness in the late eighties, Barry returned with yet another Oscar success with Dances with Wolves (1990) and was also nominated for Chaplin (1992). Since then he scored the controversial Indecent Proposal (1993), My Life (1993), Deception (1992), Cry, the Beloved Country (1995) and has made compilation albums for Sony (Moviola and Moviola II) and non-soundtrack albums for Decca ('The Beyondness Of Things' & 'Eternal Echoes').
In the late nineties he made a staggeringly successful return to the concert arena, playing to sell-out audiences at the Royal Albert Hall. Since then he has appeared as a guest conductor at a RAH concert celebrating the life and career of Elizabeth Taylor and made brief appearances at a couple of London concerts dedicated to his music. In 2004 he re-united with Don Black to write his fifth stage musical, Brighton Rock, which enjoyed a limited run at The Almeida Theatre in London.
He continued to appear at concerts of his own music, often making brief appearances at the podium. In November 2007, Christine Albanel, the French Minister for Culture, appointed him Commander in the National Order of Arts and Letters. The award was made at the eighth International Festival Music and Cinema, in Auxerre, France, when, in his honour, a concert of his music also took place.
In August 2008 he was working on a new album, provisionally entitled Seasons, which he has described as "a soundtrack of his life." A new biography, "John Barry: The Man with The Midas Touch", by Geoff Leonard, Pete Walker, and Gareth Bramley, was published in November 2008.
He died following a heart-attack on 30th January 2011, at his home in Oyster Bay, New York.The James Bond movies,
Raise The Titanic,
The Black Hole,
The Deep,
King Kong (1976 version).
(Note: John Barry was so much apart of James Bond much the same way that Bernard Herrmann was so much apart of Hitchcock. This probably explains why SOME of the non-Barry 007 films are missing some of the punch of the old ones).- Composer
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A composer, conductor, pianist and entertainer, Richard W. "Dick" LaSalle was educated at the University of Colorado. He wrote for radio in Denver, Colorado, and performed in area hotels as a pianist and orchestra leader between 1940 and 1955. He joined the American Society of Composers and Publishers (ASCAP) in 1958.Diary of a Madman,
Lost In Space (The Derelict),
Land Of The Giants (season two),
Wonder Woman (season three),
City Beneath The Sea,
Captain Nemo,
The Night The Bridge Fell Down, etc.
(Note: Diary of a Madman had some of the cues heard in LIS's The Derelict).- Music Department
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Distinguished multiple Grammy-winning trumpeter, arranger, conductor and songwriter whose instantly-recognizable style remains a longtime trademark. The son of a roofer and a youthful asthmatic, his physician advised therapy through playing the tuba. In his school band, he developed an appreciation of the other instruments and became a self-taught trumpeter and trombonist, and also an arranger. On the occasion when Charlie Barnet was to perform on a Pittsburgh radio station, May came to the studio to show Barnet some arrangements, which Barnet accepted but never paid for. Several months later, May approached Barnet for payment and Barnet offered May a position with his band. For Barnet, he provided the arrangement for his hits "Cherokee" and "Redskin Rhumba". Eventually Glenn Miller became aware of the Barnet band's sound and hired May away to play and arrange. For Miller, Billy May contributed the arrangements for "Serenade in Blue", "American Patrol" and "Take the 'A' Train". When the Miller band dissolved during World War II, May settled in Los Angeles to work with NBC and Capitol Records as a studio arranger, and with the bands of 'Les Brown', Woody Herman, Alvino Rey and Ozzie Nelson. But his longest association was with Frank Sinatra, with whom he worked on the noted albums "Come Fly With Me" (1957), " and "Come Dance With Me" (1958), "Come Swing With Me" (1961), and "Trilogy" (1979). In the early 1950s, Billy May had his own orchestra, for which the theme was "Lean Baby", featuring his trademark sax style. His last musical work was arranging a 90th Anniversary compendium of the music from Paramount Pictures in collaboration with noted composer-arranger Will Schaefer. But Billy May left the project due to his illness.The Green Hornet,
Batman (season three),
Mod Squad,
The Naked City (Series).
(Note: he did so much for 1966 Batman).- Music Department
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Versatile American arranger/conductor who started as a trombonist with several big bands, including Tommy Dorsey. In a long, distinguished career, he not only scored numerous films and television shows, but made many now-legendary recordings in collaboration with such people as Rosemary Clooney, Nat 'King' Cole, and, most notably, Frank Sinatra. With the latter, he recorded a series of albums now regarded as legendary ("Songs for Swingin' Lovers", "The Concert Sinatra", etc.). He recorded prolifically on his own, as well, scoring two top-ten hits with "Lisbon Antigua" (#1, 1956) and "Theme from 'Route 66'" (# 10, 1962). In his later years, he made a series of successful albums with pop diva Linda Ronstadt.Batman (season one & two),
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (one episode),
Lolita,
The Untouchables (TV theme),
Pal Joey.
(Note: despite just doing one episode of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, his music was heard a bit in the series as it was re-used as stock music).- Composer
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Stu Phillips was born on 9 September 1929 in the USA. He is a composer and actor, known for Knight Rider (1982), Argo (2012) and X-Men: Apocalypse (2016).Buck Rogers In The 25th Century,
Battlestar Galactica.
(Note: Too bad this composer was not around for every episode of Buck and BG).- Music Department
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A child prodigy, Miklos Rózsa learned to play the violin at the age of five and read music before he was able to read words. In 1926, he began studying at the Leipzig Conservatory where he was considered a brilliant student. He obtained his doctorate in music in 1930. Moving to Paris the following year, Rózsa had much of his own chamber music performed, as well as his 'Variations on a Hungarian Peasant Song' and his 'Symphony and Serenade for Small Orchestra'. However, he soon became disenchanted with meagre wages for playing classical music in concert. Attempting to change his financial situation, Rózsa managed to secure a contract with Pathe records to compose music for use in intermissions between movies. This was to be his first step in entering the more lucrative field of film composition. In 1935, Rózsa went to London after being invited by the Hungarian Legation to write the music for a ballet. The resulting work, 'Hungaria', so impressed the director Jacques Feyder that he set up a meeting with fellow Hungarian Alexander Korda, who then commissioned him to write an opulent score for the romantic drama Knight Without Armor (1937). Rózsa later recalled having to learn to write music for films 'the hard way': "I bought one German and one Russian book on the technique of film music and everything I learned from these books was absolutely wrong! But then I had long conferences with Muir Mathieson, who was the music director and conductor for Korda, and somehow I learned."
While writing the score for The Thief of Bagdad (1940), Rózsa relocated to Hollywood where he remained gainfully employed over the next four decades. An expert at orchestration and counterpoint with a great flair for the dramatic, he often concentrated on the psychological aspects of a film. One of his innovations was the use of a theremin for the famous dream sequence in Spellbound (1945) which accompanies Salvador Dalí's transcendental nightmare images. Few composers have managed to convey suspense and tension as powerfully as Rózsa with his eerily haunting scores for some of the Golden Era's best films noir (Double Indemnity (1944), The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), The Killers (1946), The Naked City (1948)) or his lush, stirring music for spectacular epics (Quo Vadis (1951), Ivanhoe (1952), El Cid (1961)). In addition to winning three Oscars for his film work, Rózsa also continued as a prolific composer of classical music, including Violin and Piano Concertos, a Concerto for String Orchestra, a Sinfonia Concertante and Notturno Ungherese (influenced, respectively, by Stravinsky and Bartók). In 1945, he was appointed Professor of Composition at the University of Southern California where also lectured on the subject for many years.Ben-Hur (1959 version),
The Golden Voyage Of Sinbad (1973),
Captain Video (1951 movie serial).
(Note: I found Ben-Hur late, in 1998, but I found it in a good way - re-released with a fine print on a cinema screen. This 1998 viewing, with the music playing in HD, was probably the highlight of 1998).- Music Department
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Ron Grainer was one of the outstanding composers of music for British television. He was born in a small mining town called Atherton, Queensland, Australia on 11th August 1922, where his father owned the local milk bar. His mother played piano and Ron was on the keyboard from the age of two and considered a child genius, playing concerts for the local community by the age of six. He also showed the first sign of his versatility at the tender age of four when he began to learn the violin, practicing for two hours before and after school. In order to develop this talent further, he also studied the piano to such a level that, by his early teens he was a proficient performer on both instruments. He was never allowed to play any games which might injure his fingers so led a pretty lonely life. During these years he was an excellent scholar who also had to complete homework assignments. Maths was his special subject, which helped enormously in his orchestrations later on.
Before the second world-war, he studied music under Sir Eugene Goosens at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, but this was interrupted by World War II. He was called up to serve in the army on the islands after Japan invaded and Australia sent forces to monitor planes flying over. It was there that a barrel crashed against his leg when he was travelling in a truck and they had to drive over open ground very fast. He managed to get one leg over the tailgate but the other leg was crushed. There were no doctors at the base and he was in terrible pain and unconscious for several days before he was given medical treatment, by then osteomyelitis had entered the bone marrow. They wanted to amputate but he couldn't have survived the anaesthetic, so he did not lose his leg but was in and out of hospital for years and received an army disability pension.
He returned to Sydney Conservatorium when the war ended but he gave up the violin to concentrate on composition. During this time he rented a room from Margot who became his wife. She had her daughter living with her who had an aversion to meat and so she and Ron bonded as Ron had become total vegetarian during his treatment.
The couple decided to move to England, as a means of raising his international profile. However, on arriving in 1952, with Margot, he initially found regular work as a pianist in light entertainment, touring as part of a musical act - 'The Alien Brothers & June' - with other acts such as Billy Daniels, Guy Mitchell, Frankie Laine, Al Martino and Billy Eckstine. Playing in such exalted company, he was rewarded with no less than three appearances at the London Palladium and also gained something of a reputation as a piano accompanist, often helping out at charity shows organised by Record & Show Mirror proprietor, Isodore Green, the brother of the well-known jazz critic, Benny Green.
During this period, Grainer made his first recordings, albeit as an accompanist, backing Irish folk-singers Charlie McGhee and Patrick O'Hagan, and was also heard on a Christmas record by Shari. He became fascinated with the sound produced by the antique instruments he had started to collect, and soon developed this interest by writing works for some of them. The virginal, the heckle-phones, the shaums, the tenor comporium, as well as the more modern ondes martinet were amongst those he successfully tackled, and one of these early works was an ambitious jazz-ballet score.
After Grainer had divorced Margot, and married his second wife, Jennifer, he settled in Roehampton. He began to act regularly as musical adviser to many gala programmes produced by Associated Rediffusion TV, including those featuring Tito Gobbi and Maria Callas. His 'bread-and-butter' work, however, still lay as a pianist and he was much in demand at the BBC TV rehearsal rooms, which eventually opened a number of important musical doors for him. From this vantage point he was asked to write music for a number of television plays, including The Birthday Party (1960), and also accepted the job as musical adviser to a [link=nm0000267 series. He made such a strong impression on executive producer Andrew Osborn, that he was commissioned to write both the theme and incidental music for a new detective series - Maigret (1959) - based on the books written by Georges Simenon. In using harpsichord, banjo and clavichord, Grainer perfectly captured the Gallic atmosphere and, in doing so, contributed enormously to the ultimate success of the series. This proved to be a major landmark in Grainer's own career. His work on Maigret, which began in 1960 with Rupert Davies in the title role, was directly responsible for him securing his first recording deal with Warner Bros., who issued both a single and an EP featuring musical extracts from the BBC series. Bandleader Joe Loss also recorded the theme and perhaps surprisingly it was his single which reached number 20 in the charts.
Over the next few years, a succession of TV themes and scores followed, many for the BBC. The first of these was 'Happy Joe' in 1962, the theme to Comedy Playhouse (1961) - a series designed to give 'try-outs' to pilots for potential new comedy series. This cheerful sounding melody became extremely familiar with its catchy whistling, encouraging 'Pye', Grainer's new record company to issue it on a single. One of the first Comedy Playhouse (1961) pilots to get its own series was Steptoe and Son (1962), which starred Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett as the feuding father and son rag and bone men. Grainer was invited to compose the theme, which he named 'Old Ned' - a reference to the horse which in the opening sequence was shown pulling the cart along. Helped by the enormous success of the series, the theme to Steptoe and Son was recorded by many artists although this saturation coverage spoilt the chances of any one version charting. 'Old Ned' won for Grainer his second successive Ivor Novello Award, following success with Maigret the previous year.
One of BBC's very first cooking programmes, 'Fanny Craddock', transmitted in 1963, also benefited from a Grainer theme, as did 'Giants Of Steam', The Flying Swan (1965) and The Old Curiosity Shop (1962) in the same year. While Grainer worked on the score for the feature film, Some People (1962), he encountered the Eagles, an instrumental group which hailed from Bristol, where the film was being shot. If not actually Grainer discoveries, they were certainly his protégées; they eventually re-recorded a plethora of Grainer originals, and at one time even shared his new home. Their recording of Oliver Twist (1962), for example, written by Grainer for the BBC's adaptation for children's television in 1962, is to this day the only recorded version.
In the same year further film work ensued in the form of Trial and Error (1962), A Kind of Loving (1962) and Live Now - Pay Later (1962), while the following year he was assigned to write the music for The Mouse on the Moon (1963), a comedy written by Michael Pertwee and directed by Richard Lester. Despite these credential and an excellent cast which included Margaret Rutherford, Ron Moody, Bernard Cribbins and Terry-Thomas, the film failed to live up to expectations. Grainer's theme was covered by 'The Countdowns', who are actually an orchestra under the direction of John Barry. Also in 1963, Grainer was asked to provide a theme for a new children's BBC's science fiction series entitled Doctor Who (1963). Despite some changes to the arrangement, this theme is still being used over 40 years later, as the series enjoys renewed success. The very first episode of Doctor Who was broadcast in November, on a day when television was dominated by the news of the shooting of President John F. Kennedy, so tended to pass almost unnoticed, but soon became one of the most popular children's programmes of all time.
Producer Ned Sherrin was impressed with Grainer's ability to create themes for such a wide variety of programmes and in the same year commissioned him to compose the theme for the ground-breaking satirical BBC TV show, That Was the Week That Was (1962) and its successor, Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life (1964). Lyricist Caryl Brahms provided the words sung by Millicent Martin. Around this time, Grainer started experiencing eye problems. Fortunately, prompt treatment helped alleviate blindness with doctors attributing the condition to excessive working under artificial lighting. Despite this obvious handicap, Grainer's output continued apparently unabated. In 1964 he wrote the film-score for Nothing But the Best (1964) - a comedy drama written by Frederic Raphael which starred Alan Bates, Denholm Elliott, Harry Andrews and Millicent Martin. Director Clive Donner had previously worked with Grainer on 'Some People'.
Grainer's first excursion on to the London stage came with 'Robert and Elizabeth' which he wrote with lyricist Ronald Millar. This was a musical about the lives of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, based on 'The Barretts of Wimpole Street', with an original cast including June Bronhill, Keith Michell and John Clement, who also featured on the original cast album. Work on this musical won for Grainer a third Ivor Novello Award. In 1966, a second musical, 'On the Level', also written with lyricist Ronald Millar wasn't quite so successful, though an original cast album did materialise featuring Sheila White and Rod McLennan. However, in 1970, he returned to the world of stage musicals with 'Sing a Rude Song', which benefited from lyrics written by Caryl Brahms and Ned Sherrin. It opened at the Greenwich Theatre prior to a London West End run at the Garrick Theatre.
After concentrating for a few years on films and theatre work, 1967 saw him back on the small screen. Man in a Suitcase (1967), an ITC series starring Richard Bradford as McGill - a one man investigator, featured another exciting Grainer theme. Next up, he produced an unforgettable theme for The Prisoner (1967). What's often not related is the fact that Grainer was originally ITC's third choice as composer for the cult series, after they rejected earlier efforts from Robert Farnon and Wilfred Josephs. Moreover, Grainer's own original attempt, 'Age of Elegance', was deemed inappropriate by producer and star, Patrick McGoohan, who initially disliked the tempo, deeming it far too languorous. Grainer's swift response was to speed it up. What transpired was precisely the type of theme McGoohan envisaged and is the one which eventually graced each episode.
Although Grainer did not write the popular title song, To Sir, with Love (1967), his association with the success of the film led to further offers and in 1968 he scored three more. The Assassination Bureau (1969), was a frantic black comedy starring Oliver Reed and Diana Rigg, Only When I Larf (1968), which boasted a screenplay based on the Len Deighton book, and a cast which included Richard Attenborough, David Hemmings and Alexandra Stewart as a trio of confidence tricksters, and Lock Up Your Daughters! (1969) - the bawdy comedy based on the very successful stage musical of the same name. The stage version had featured music and lyrics by Laurie Johnson and Lionel Bart, but Grainer was in sole charge of the film score.
Grainer's impressive portfolio of music involving detectives or special agents was further enhanced in 1969 with Paul Temple (1969), created by thriller-writer Francis Durbridge for a series of novels in the 1930s. However, the BBC's adaptation, one of their first major colour productions, placed him in a contemporary setting where he, as a writer turned amateur sleuth, was portrayed by Francis Matthews. The series proved an enduring success, extending to 52 episodes over four seasons, ending in September 1971. However, his talents were not solely confined to this genre as two contemporaneous BBC commissions - Boy Meets Girl and The Jazz Age - bear witness to. Boy Meets Girl (1967), which began in 1967, was a series of plays adapted from modern fiction, of which "The Raging Moon" - later a highly acclaimed film - was one such example, while The Jazz Age (1968) which began a year later, collected the works of such notable authors as Noël Coward and John Galsworthy, as a means of producing a series of plays set entirely in the twenties. His theme for this was a deliberate throw-back to the music of that period.
In the early seventies, Grainer achieved further success as a writer of television themes with three commissions for London Weekend Television: Man in the News (1970), The Trouble with You, Lilian (1971) and The Train Now Standing (1972), as well as one for Thames - For the Love of Ada (1970). The Train Now Standing was a gentle comedy drama set at Burberry Halt - one of the few rural railway stations to escape the Beeching axe. Bill Fraser starred as stationmaster Hedley Green who still worked by the GWR 1933 rule book, and other regulars included Denis Lill and Pamela Cundell. Grainer's theme instantly conjures up images of an era of old-fashioned steam trains, a subject on which he had previously worked for the BBC in the early sixties.
He didn't neglect his film duties either during this period, scoring Hoffman (1970), a curious vehicle for Peter Sellers, and Charlton Heston's The Omega Man (1971) - nowadays regarded as a 'cult' movie. However, his eyes continued to prove troublesome, and in a final attempt to combat this. He decided to move to the Algarve in Portugal, actually a farmhouse in Albufeira, where the natural light was appreciably better. According to a report in the Sun newspaper in 1973, Grainer was enjoying life in Portugal and had no intention of returning to England to pick up his abandoned career. But, in 1976, he divorced Jennifer and two years later moved back to England with his son, Damon, to live near Brighton, at which point he was commissioned by Anglia Television to write the theme for a new mystery series entitled Tales of the Unexpected (1979). Author Roald Dahl, perhaps best known for his children's stories, proved equally as adept at devising and writing many macabre plots for this networked series. Featuring a different cast every week, each self-contained half-hour episode usually ended with a teasing denouement, which, in effect explained its title.
Thames Television provided Grainer with two further commissions in that same year. Born and Bred (1978) and Edward & Mrs. Simpson (1978), two very contrasting programmes. Born And Bred was a comedy series set in Battersea, London, which focused upon the stifled and unrealised aspirations of a group of middle-aged residents, whereas 'Edward & Mrs Simpson' based itself on the uncrowned Duke of Windsor's constitutionally controversial relationship with divorcee and subsequent wife, Duchess of Windsor.
Grainer enjoyed a fruitful relationship, artistically and commercially with the BBC and in 1979 he obtained a further two commissions from them. Mystery!: Malice Aforethought (1979), written by Philip Mackie from the original novel by Anthony Berkeley, told the story of a country doctor (Hywel Bennett) who plots to murder his wife (Judy Parfitt) to enable him to continue with a passionate affair. Managing to retain the suspense of the original novel, this was a delightfully observed representation of life in the English countryside during the thirties. This four-part series was broadcast in the same year (1979) as Rebecca (1979) - a strict adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier's novel, which once again teamed Grainer with producer Richard Beynon, after their success with 'Malice'. Directed by Simon Langton, Rebecca starred Jeremy Brett, Joanna David and Anna Massey.
Ron Grainer continued writing music for television and films right up to his death in 1981. Two comedies for Independent Television: Shelley (1979) and It Takes a Worried Man (1981) benefited from his themes, while his score for 'The Business of Murder', a two-part episode of LWT's Sunday Night Thriller (1981) series, was his very last and was transmitted posthumously. On 21st February, 1981, only ten days after being admitted to Cuckfield Hospital in Sussex, suffering from cancer of the spine, he died at the early age of 58. His former wife, Jennifer, flew from Portugal to be at his side.
Very much the 'unsung hero' amongst film and TV composers, Grainer is still being 'discovered'. In the late nineties, for example, Chris Evans chose his 'Man in a Suitcase' theme to introduce the very popular TFI Friday (1996). Evans also made a feature out of the opening titles of Tales of the Unexpected (1979) (featuring Grainer's music) by inviting the original dancer onto the show. In 2007, news came that an album of his music from this series was being compiled for future release on CD.The Prisoner (theme),
The Omega Man,
Doctor Who (theme).
(Note: The Prisoner is a UK drama series of the 60s and is not to be confused with an 80s Australian series about a women's prison).- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
Michael Vickers was born on 18 April 1940 in Staines-upon-Thames, Surrey, England, UK. He is a composer and actor, known for At the Earth's Core (1976), My Lover, My Son (1970) and Lovebox (1972).Warlords Of Atlantis.
(Note: Michael only just manged to sneak in this list as his Warlords score is just so memorable).- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
Leonard Rosenman was born on 7 September 1924 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. He was a composer, known for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), Barry Lyndon (1975) and La La Land (2016). He was married to Judie Gregg, Lyn Furr, Kay Scott and Adele Bracker. He died on 4 March 2008 in Woodland Hills, California, USA.Fantastic Voyage,
Beneath The Planet Of The Apes,
Rebel Without A Cause,
Star Trek 4: The Voyage Home.
The Car.
(Note: his style of music stands out a mile away).- Music Department
- Composer
- Soundtrack
Prolific screen composer, arranger, and conductor, educated at Juillard and the Academie fur Musik in Vienna. He played in night clubs in Vienna and Munich from 1923 to 1926, then was an opera coach in Munich, 1926-1927. In 1927 he conducted for NBC, and then became music director for WGY in Schenectady, New York. In 1933, he departed for Hollywood and joined ASCAP in 1944.House Of Wax (original).
(Note: mighty sounding music when the wax figures burn).- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
Bruce Broughton composes in almost every medium, from theatrical motion pictures and television to computer games, in styles ranging from large symphonic settings ("Silverado") to contemporary electronic scores (the recently Emmy-nominated "The Dive from Clausen's Pier"). Broughton has written the scores for such major motion pictures as "Tombstone," "Lost In Space," "Young Sherlock Holmes" and "Bambi II." With 23 nominations, he has received the Emmy award a record ten times, most recently for his score to the HBO movie, "Warm Springs." His television credits include the main title themes for "Jag" and Steven Spielberg's "Tiny Toon Adventures," as well as the scores for countless television series ("Dallas," "Quincy," "Hawaii Five-O") and movies and mini-series ("The Blue and the Gray," True Women"). His score for "Heart of Darkness" was the first orchestral score composed for a CD-ROM game. Broughton's concert music includes numerous works for orchestra and chamber groups, which have been performed by ensembles such as the Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. He is a governor of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a board member of ASCAP and a past president of The Society of Composers and Lyricists. He has lectured in music composition at UCLA and has taught film composition in the Advanced Film Music Studies program at USC.Hawaii Five O Original Series,
Lost In Space The Movie.
(Note: Originally, Lost In Space wanted to get John Williams but he was unavailable).- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
As Danny Elfman was growing up in the Los Angeles area, he was largely unaware of his talent for composing. It wasn't until the early 1970s that Danny and his older brother Richard Elfman started a musical troupe while in Paris; the group "Mystic Knights of Oingo-Boingo" was created for Richard's directorial debut, Forbidden Zone (1980) (now considered a cult classic by Elfman fans). The group's name went through many incarnations over the years, beginning with "The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo" and eventually just Oingo Boingo. While continuing to compose eclectic, intelligent rock music for his L.A.-based band (some of which had been used in various film soundtracks, e.g. Weird Science (1985)), Danny formed a friendship with young director Tim Burton, who was then a fan of Oingo Boingo. Danny went on to score the soundtrack of Pee-wee's Big Adventure (1985), Danny's first orchestral film score. The Elfman-Burton partnership continued (most notably through the hugely-successful "Batman" flicks) and opened doors of opportunity for Danny, who has been referred to as "Hollywood's hottest film composer".Batman The 1989 Movie,
Desperate Housewives (theme).
(Note: that 1989 Batman score was so much apart of that year - must have listened to that score 200 times in 12 months).- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
A three-time Oscar nominee, Jerry Fielding was among the boldest and most experimental of all Hollywood film composers. His music typically utilized advanced compositional procedures, producing dense, often richly dissonant orchestral textures, sometimes flavored with jazz. Fielding's film music career was marked by enduring and rewarding collaborations with Sam Peckinpah, Michael Winner and Clint Eastwood.
Born Joshua Feldman in Pittsburgh in 1922 to immigrant Russian parents, Jerry Fielding was brought up in a music-loving but non-musical household. As a home-bound, somewhat sickly teenager, Fielding derived early inspiration from the radio productions of Orson Welles, with their groundbreaking Bernard Herrmann scores. He was also fascinated by the increasingly advanced orchestrations being done for the swing bands of the time, with their heavy reliance on aspects of classical music. The young Fielding joined the studio of Max Adkins, the noted director of theatrical music who also included Henry Mancini and Murray Gerson among his students. After picking up vital arranging skills, Fielding toured with some of the leading dance bands of the 1940s. This led to Hollywood, where his radio and television assignments included conducting and arranging for many of the most popular variety shows of the time, including those of Groucho Marx.
At this time the shadow of McCarthyism was looming over America and Fielding, a self-confessed "loud-mouthed crusader", found himself among its many victims. His hiring of black musicians for his television orchestra (unheard of in those days) brought criticism and threats. His progressive affiliations brought him to the attention of the FBI and HUAC. Despite his strong liberal beliefs, Fielding said that McCarthy's men were probably more interested in getting him to name Groucho Marx as a "fellow traveler". He took the Fifth Amendment and promptly found his Hollywood career in ruins. He eventually found employment in the safe haven of Las Vegas, where he became musical director for the stage shows of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Debbie Reynolds, Eddie Fisher and others. He also began recording the first of many pop and swing LPs, such as "Fielding's Formula", "Sweet With A Beat" and "Hollywood Brass".
The approach of the 1960s saw the end of McCarthyism and Fielding's return to Hollywood. In 1962, at the suggestion of his writer friend Dalton Trumbo, Fielding was hired by Otto Preminger for the film Advise & Consent (1962), a tale of political intrigue amid the halls of Washington, DC. It was a remarkable debut score that combined light orchestral lyricism with hints of the richer, almost ethereal textures of his later work. It was also drenched in Fielding's own brand of dark irony--a trademark of the composer.
Around this time Fielding, hungry to expand his compositional technique, enrolled as a student of the venerated composer and teacher Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, who, incidentally, had given similar instruction to Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams. More television work followed, including scores to Mission: Impossible (1966) and Star Trek (1966). In 1967 Fielding scored Noon Wine (1966), a contemporary western for television directed by Sam Peckinpah. It was the first in a legendary though sometimes tumultuous partnership. In 1969 came The Wild Bunch (1969). This landmark western was Peckinpah's and Fielding's breakthrough movie. The composer caught the weariness, dust, dirt and blood of a vanishing West in a rich underscore that interspersed sprightly action cues with wistful Mexican folk melodies and nostalgic, bittersweet dirges. However, as always, the nostalgia was tempered with Fielding's characteristically steely irony. It earned him his first Oscar nomination. A second came with Peckinpah's Straw Dogs (1971) in 1971. This controversial though somewhat garbled tale of the violence lurking within a meek man saw Fielding's music take a new direction. Inspired by Igor Stravinsky's "Histoire Du Soldat", and with a large orchestra supplying dense, yearning sound clusters, this remarkable work gives voice to both the characters' inner turmoil and the desolate Cornish landscapes of the film's setting.
Fielding provided another sensitive, beautifully forlorn score for Peckinpah's proxy self-portrait, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974). However, some Peckinpah collaborations were not so happy. Fielding's music for The Getaway (1972) was rejected in favor of a score by Quincy Jones. Then in 1973 Fielding backed out of working with Bob Dylan on the score for Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973).
Fielding's association with Michael Winner began in 1970 with Lawman (1971), for which the composer supplied an epic score tinged with jazz--something of a first for a western! Then followed the searing, impressionistic music for Chato's Land (1972), The Mechanic (1972) and Scorpio (1973). A standout score was for Winner's gothic melodrama, The Nightcomers (1971). This gave Fielding a chance to indulge his love of 19th-century baroque music. The composer considered it among his finest works. His final score for Winner was for The Big Sleep (1978). It was an admirable consummation of the composer's various techniques.
Clint Eastwood was well served by Fielding's scores to The Enforcer (1976) and The Gauntlet (1977). The composer responded to their hard-edged urban milieu with full-on jazz compositions that featured some of the best jazz players in the business. In 1976 Fielding received his third and final Oscar nomination for Eastwood's The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976).
Jerry Fielding was a man who fought hard to get his brand of music into films. He was not a glad-hander. He was an uncompromising artist who perhaps sacrificed many choice assignments by spurning easy, producer-friendly routes. These stances may have taken their toll on him. From the mid-'70s onwards, the composer endured a series of heart attacks. In 1980 he suffered a fatal heart seizure while in Canada scoring Funeral Home. He was 57 years old. Jerry Fielding had an innately humane approach to film scoring. He eschewed traditional "mickey-mousing" techniques (i.e., slavishly following every on-screen action). Rather, his music sought to mirror and illuminate the motivations and deepest inner lives of the characters. This it did with great compassion, beauty and sensitivity. Producer Gordon T. Dawson touchingly described Fielding's music as being " . . . like a man in a green suit walking in a forest."
And so it is.Beyond The Poseidon Adventure,
The Enforcer,
Kolchak The Night Stalker.
(Note: he scored two episodes of Star Trek Original Series but his scores were terrible!).- Music Department
- Composer
- Writer
Although many reference sources inexplicably give Barry Gray's year of birth as 1925, he was in fact born John Livesey Eccles in Blackburn on 18 July 1908. His father John Haworth Eccles was a stationery traveller by profession, but both parents were said to be musically talented, and John Junior went to study at the Royal Manchester College of Music and at Blackburn Cathedral, learning composition from Matyas Seiber. His professional music career began with London publishers B. Feldman & Co. where he arranged scores for variety theatres, and he also worked for Radio Normandy. After war service with the R.A.F. he became a freelance composer and lyricist for radio, records and film music libraries. He joined the Performing Right Society in 1947 under his real name, but later changed it by deed poll to John Livesey Barry Gray. After several years as musical assistant to Eartha Kitt, Hoagy Carmichael and Vera Lynn, in 1956 he began a long and successful association with producers Gerry and Sylvia Anderson, scoring popular marionation series such as Twizzle, Supercar, Fireball XL5, Stingray and Thunderbirds. He continued to compose independently, sometimes using the pseudonyms John Livesey, Gene Durant or Martin Jerbourg (a character in Bergerac). Barry Gray himself moved to the Channel Islands in 1970, settling in St Peter-in-the-Wood in Guernsey and with a music studio in St Peter Port, and occasionally guesting as pianist at island venues. He died of heart disease at Guernsey's Princess Elizabeth Hospital on 26 April 1984, age 75. His music continues to find favour with film makers, particularly the ever-popular Thunderbirds March which enjoyed a notable revival in the expensive Thunderbirds remake of 2004.Stingray,
Thunderbirds,
U.F.O,
Space 1999 (season one).
(Note: Gray was so much apart of these Gerry Anderson shows).- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
Immensely talented, Argentinian born pianist, conductor and composer who has written over 100 scores for both television & the cinema including the memorable themes to Mission: Impossible (1966), Mannix (1967), Starsky and Hutch (1975), Cool Hand Luke (1967), and Bullitt (1968). Schifrin has regularly worked alongside Clint Eastwood (another jazz music aficionado) on numerous contributions including the themes to all the Dirty Harry films, plus Joe Kidd (1972) and Coogan's Bluff (1968). During his illustrious career, Schifrin has received four Grammy Awards, and has received six Oscar nominations.
Schifrin received his classical music training in both Argentina & France, and is a highly respected jazz pianist. On moving back to Buenos Aires in the mid 1950s, Schifrin formed his own big band, and was noticed by jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie, who asked him to become his pianist and arranger. Schifrin moved to the United States in 1958 and his career really began to take off. In addition to his jazz and cinema compositions, he has conducted the London Philarmonic Orchestra, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angelas Philarmonic, the Los Angelas Chamber Orchestra and many others.
Schifrin is one of the talented and significant contributors to film music over the past 40 years, and he continues to remain active with recent compositions for the Jackie Chan films Rush Hour (1998) and Rush Hour 2 (2001).When Time Ran Out,
Murderers' Row,
The Concorde...Airport 79,
Dirty Harry,
Magnum Force,
Sudden Impact,
Mission Impossible (theme),
Mannix (theme),
Starsky and Hutch (theme),
Planet of the Apes TV series (theme).
(Note: King of 70s TV themes?).- Music Department
- Composer
- Director
Elliot Goldenthal is an Academy Award-winning composer best known for his original music scores for such films as Frida (2002) and Across the Universe (2007), among his other works.
He was born on May 2, 1954, in Brooklyn, New York. His father was a house-painter, and his mother was a seamstress. Young Goldenthal was fond of music and theatre, he played with his school rock band during the 1960s. In 1968, he staged his first ballet at John Dewey High School in Brooklyn, from which he graduated in 1971. He attended the Manhattan School of Music, studied under Aaron Copland and John Corigliano, and earned his MA in composition.
Among Goldenthal's most notable works are his original music scores for numerous films, such as Julie Taymor's Frida (2002), Clark Johnson's S.W.A.T. (2003), Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever (1995) and Batman & Robin (1997). Goldenthal also has been collaborating with director Neil Jordan on five films, among those are Michael Collins (1996), and Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994), for which he earned two Oscar nominations.
Since the early 1980s, Elliot Goldenthal has been working together with Julie Taymor. Their partnership in film and in life has been one of the most rewarding in film business; the couple made such acclaimed films as Titus (1999), Frida (2002) and Across the Universe (2007), among their other works, earning numerous awards and nominations for their highly innovative creativity.Batman Forever,
Batman and Robin (1997 version).
(Note: one of the better 90s composers).- Music Department
- Composer
- Sound Department
Of Hungarian ancestry, the son of film composer George Steiner followed in his father's footsteps. A child prodigy, he played the piano by the age of six and cello at thirteen. Growing up in Manhattan, Fred immersed himself in his father's vast collection of records, which included a great deal of orchestral and chamber music. Highly motivated to study composition and playing two instruments, he soon earned himself a scholarship. By the age of twenty, he graduated with a degree from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio, and, in later years, added a PhD from USC to his resume for writing a dissertation on the legendary film composer Alfred Newman. Straight out of college, Fred began writing and arranging scores for several New York-based radio broadcasts, including "Suspense" and "CBS Radio Workshop". He also scored wartime propaganda shorts, selling war bonds. Another popular show, for which he composed and conducted, was "This Is Your FBI", a semi-documentary production based on actual case files and often narrated by movie personalities, like Richard Widmark, Jack Lemmon and Jeff Chandler.
From 1947, Steiner (who was not related to the legendary Max) spent time in Hollywood, working as arranger, conductor and (often uncredited) composer. His first solo motion picture effort and personal favourite among his scores, Run for the Sun (1956), came about via a recommendation from his good friend Bernard Herrmann. Though he later shared an Academy Award nomination for adaptation/orchestration of The Color Purple (1985), Fred reserved his best work for the small screen. One of the most prolific of television composers, he contributed to numerous episodes of popular series, ranging across diverse genres, from Gunsmoke (1955) to Hogan's Heroes (1965); from The Twilight Zone (1959) to Hawaii Five-O (1968). He was singularly adept at suiting his music to a particular dramatic situation or conveying specific emotions to a certain scene, as, for example, in his use of violins and harp in the Rachmaninoff-inspired score for the "Twilight Zone" episode "The Passersby".
One of Steiner's most fondly remembered compositions is the jazzy "Park Avenue Beat", which served as the theme for the long-running courtroom drama series Perry Mason (1957), conceived to represent a combination of 'sophistication and toughness'. In stark contrast, he provided a more light-hearted musical approach to his score of the animated cult favorite The Bullwinkle Show (1959). His affinity for animation can be traced back to his father, who wrote music for many of the early classic cartoons, such as the "Betty Boop" series and Terrytoons productions, almost always working from home.
Fred Steiner also made a lasting impact on fans of Star Trek (1966), composing music for several episodes, of which "The Corbomite Maneuver" and "Balance of Terror" are often considered among the best of the original series. In an interview (recorded in Santa Fe on June 25, 2003), he recalled that Gene Roddenberry had made it clear to him from the beginning, that he didn't want "poops and peeps music", but "Captain Blood in space"!
Between 1958 and 1960, Steiner worked in Mexico, compiling and archiving Latin American music for government-sponsored television documentaries. He grew to admire the local traditional culture and was in later years drawn back to spend his twilight years there. He also continued his life-long interest in musicology, co-founding the Film Music Society, lecturing in composition at USC and regularly contributing to a number of musical publications (authoring analyses of classic film scores, such as King Kong (1933) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)).Lost In Space Original Series,
Star Trek Original Series.
(Note: one of the less talked about LIS/Trek link ups).- Music Department
- Composer
- Additional Crew
Dominic Carmen Frontiere, 86, Emmy and Golden Globe winning film and television composer, former head of music at Paramount Pictures, passed away in Tesuque, New Mexico on 21 December 2017. He is survived by his wife Robin and their children Emily, Joseph, Nicholas and Sofia, as well as daughter Victoria from a previous marriage.The Outer Limits Original Series,
The Invaders,
Vegas (theme),
Probe (theme).
(Note: He dropped out of both Limits and Invaders after one season).- Music Department
- Composer
- Actor
David Arnold was born on 23 January 1962 in Luton, England, UK. He is a composer and actor, known for Casino Royale (2006), Independence Day (1996) and Godzilla (1998). He has been married to Ellie Pole since 8 June 1996. They have three children.Independence Day.
(Note: one of the better 90s composers).- Composer
- Music Department
- Soundtrack
In his ongoing, decades-long career as a composer, Alan Silvestri has blazed an innovative trail with his exciting and melodic scores, winning the applause of Hollywood and movie audiences the world over. With a credit list of over 100 films Silvestri has composed some of the most recognizable and beloved themes in movie history. His efforts have been recognized with two Oscar nominations, two Golden Globe nominations, three Grammy awards, two Emmy awards, and numerous International Film Music Critics Awards, Saturn Awards, and Hollywood Music In Media Awards.
Born in New York City and raised in Teaneck, New Jersey, Silvestri first dreamed of becoming a jazz guitar player. After spending two years at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, he hit the road as a performer and arranger. Landing in Hollywood at the age of 22, he found himself successfully composing the music for 1972's "The Doberman Gang" which established his place in the world of film composing.
The 1970s witnessed the rise of energetic synth-pop scores, establishing Silvestri as the action rhythmatist for TV's highway patrol hit "CHiPs." This action driven score caught the ear of a young filmmaker named Robert Zemeckis, whose hit film, 1984's "Romancing the Stone," was the perfect first date for the composer and director. It's success became the basis of a decades long collaboration that continues to this day. Their numerous collaborations have taken them through fascinating landscapes and stylistic variations, from the "Back to the Future" trilogy to the jazzy world of Toontown in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" the tension filled rooms of "What Lies Beneath" and "Death Becomes Her", to the cosmic wonder of "Contact;" the emotional isolation of "Castaway", to the magic of the "Polar Express". But perhaps no film collaboration defines their creative relationship better than Zemeckis' 1994 Best Picture winner, "Forrest Gump", for which Silvestri's gift for melodically beautiful themes earned him an Oscar and Golden Globe nomination and the affection of film music lovers everywhere. This 35 year, 21 film collaboration includes such recent films as "Flight", "Allied" and most recently "Welcome To Marwen". Zemeckis and Silvestri are currently working on "The Witches" based on Roald Dahl's 1973 classic book scheduled for release in October of 2020.
Though the Zemeckis/Silvestri collaboration is legendary, Silvestri has scored films of every imaginable style and genre. His energy has brought excitement and emotion to the hard-hitting orchestral scores for Steven Spielberg's "Ready Player One", James Cameron's "The Abyss" as well as "Predator" and "The Mummy Returns." Alan's diversity is on full display in family entertainment films such as "The Father of the Bride 1 and 2", "Parent Trap", "Stuart Little 1 and 2", Disney's "Lilo and Stitch", "The Croods" as well as "Night at the Museum 1, 2 and 3" while his passion for melody fuels the romantic emotion of films like "The Bodyguard" and "What Women Want".
Most recently, Alan has composed the music for Marvel's "Avengers: Endgame." The film is the culmination of a partnership with Marvel that began in 2011 with Alan's dynamically heroic score for "Captain America: The First Avenger" followed by "Avengers". Since 2011 Alan's collaboration with Marvel helped propel "The Avengers" and "Avengers: Infinity War" to spectacular world-wide success.
Silvestri's success has also crossed into the world of songwriting. His partnership with Six-Time Grammy Award winner Glen Ballard has produced hits such as the Grammy-winning and Oscar-nominated song "Believe" (Josh Groban) for "The Polar Express", "Butterfly Fly Away" (Miley Cyrus) for "Hannah Montana The Movie", "God Bless Us Everyone" (Andrea Bocelli) for "A Christmas Carol" and "A Hero Comes Home" (Idina Menzel) for "Beowulf".
Alan and his wife Sandra are long time residents of California's central coast. In 1998 the Silvestri family embarked on a new venture as the founders of Silvestri Vineyards. Their wines show that lovingly cultivated fruit has a music all its own. "There's something about the elemental side of winemaking that appeals to me," he says. "Both music making and wine making involve a magical blending of art and science. Just as each note brings it own voice to the melody, each vine brings it's own unique personality to the wine."
Their other great passion is the ongoing search for the cure to Type 1 Juvenile Diabetes. With the diagnosis of their son at two years of age (now 29) they continue to work the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and dream of the day this disease (and all of the suffering it brings to so many) will finally become a thing of the past.Back to the Future,
Volcano.
(Note: one of the better 80s/90s composers).