Dominic Frontiere (born June 17, 1931) is an American composer, arranger, and jazz accordionist.[1] He is known for composing the theme and much of the music for the first season of the television series The Outer Limits.
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Early years
Born in New Haven, Connecticut, the son of a musical family, at age 7 Frontiere was already playing several instruments before deciding to concentrate on the accordion. At 12, he played solo at Carnegie Hall.
To Hollywood
After a stint with a big band in the late 1940's and early 1950's, Frontiere moved to Los Angeles, where he enrolled at UCLA. He eventually became musical director of 20th Century Fox. He scored several films under the tutelage of Alfred and Lionel Newman, while also recording jazz music.
An association with director and producer Leslie Stevens lead to several projects, most notably his avant-garde music for The Outer Limits, an innovative blend of music and sound effects. He also scored for The Rat Patrol, The Invaders and Twelve O'Clock High, the last two were Quinn Martin Productions.[2]
After scoring for TV shows, he went on to compose the music for the Clint Eastwood film Hang 'Em High. The title theme for that movie became a top ten hit for the group Booker T and the MG's.
Frontiere became head of the music department of Paramount Pictures in the early 1970's, where he again worked on a combination of television and film score, while concurrently orchestrating popular music albums for, among others, Chicago. He won a Golden Globe for the score to the 1980 film The Stunt Man. He also composed a jingle for the studio's television division.
Criminal history
In 1986, Frontiere entered a federal penitentiary for nine months of incarceration. Frontiere had scalped tickets to the 1980 Super Bowl, tickets he obtained through his ex-wife, Los Angeles Rams owner Georgia Frontiere. He was estimated to have scalped as many as 16,000 tickets, making a half million dollars in profit that he failed to report to the IRS. Frontiere pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year and a day in prison, three years probation, and fined $15,000 for failing to report income from the sale of the tickets and for lying to the Internal Revenue Service. (Sports Illustrated, June 30, 1986; New York Times, November 5, December 9[3] and December 10, 1986)
Selected Works
Television
- 1964: The Outer Limits
- 1964: Twelve O'Clock High
- 1965: Branded
- 1965: The F.B.I.
- 1966: The Rat Patrol
- 1966: That Girl
- 1967: The Invaders, a Quinn Martin production
- 1967: The Flying Nun
- 1970: The Immortal
- 1972: Movin' On
- 1972: Search
- 1978: Vega$
- 1982: Matt Houston
Film
- 1968: Hang 'Em High
- 1970: Chisum
- 1971: On Any Sunday
- 1972: The Train Robbers
- 1975: Brannigan
- 1980: The Stunt Man
- 1981: Modern Problems
- 1994: Color of Night
References
External links
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