Jerry Fielding

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (October 2008)

Jerry Fielding (June 17, 1922 - February 17, 1980) was an American radio, record, film and television composer, conductor, and musical director.

Biography

Childhood and education

Jerry Fielding was born as Joshua Itzhak Feldman to Hiram Harris Feldman and Esther Feldman. After trying the trombone, he took up the clarinet and joined the school band. He was offered a scholarship to the the Carnegie Institute for Instrumentalists. After a short attendance, because of ill health he was bedridden for two years with an undiagnosed ailment. While housebound, he listened to the radio, and became a fan of the big band sound and Bernard Hermann’s music for Orson Welles’s radio dramas.

Arranger and Band Leader

Somewhat recuperated, he worked at Pittsburgh’s Stanley Theater. He worked with Max Atkins (the pit orchestra conductor at the Stanley) who taught him composition and arranging. At the age of seventeen, he left Pittsburgh to work for Alvino Rey’s swing band. His arrangement of Picnic in Purgatory in 1940 became highly popular.

This job ended when most of the band was drafted. He was too frail for service. He became vocal arranger for Lucy Ann Polk’s Town Criers and then joined Kay Kyser’s band. He became their chief arranger in 1945. He also arranged for the big bands of Claude Thornhill, Jimmie Lunceford, Tommy Dorsey, Charlie Barnet, and Les Brown.

Radio work

Fielding arranged for Kyser’s Kollege of Musical Knowledge radio program, and then became the band leader for several radio programs: The Jack Paar Program (1947-1949), The Hardy Family 1952-1953, as well as work on The Life of Riley, and the Sweeney and March Show. He led the band for several years of Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life and was also with the television version of You Bet Your Life from 1949-1952. For radio and recording purposes, he formed the Jerry Fielding Orchestra.

Blacklisted in Hollywood

Due to his membership with the Hollywood Writers Mobilization (later the Independent Progressive party, groups considered by some to be communist fronts) he was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in December 1953. He took the Fifth Amendment, refusing to divulge the names of fellow members, and was then blacklisted by the Hollywood film and television studios. In Las Vegas, Nevada he led a band at the Royal Las Vegas Hotel, and he also toured for the only time with his name orchestra. He also recorded albums for Decca Records including Sweet with a Beat (released 1955) and Fielding’s Formula (1957).

Return to Hollywood

Fielding's Hollywood lockout continued until 1961. In 1962, Otto Preminger selected him for the score of Advise and Consent, his first major film composition.

Television work

Fielding is well known for scoring two episodes of the first Star Trek television series: The Trouble with Tribbles and Spectre of the Gun. He also wrote the title themes for such classic TV shows as McHale's Navy, Hogan's Heroes, Run, Buddy, Run, He & She and The Bionic Woman.

Film composition

While well-known for his scores for such filmmakers as Clint Eastwood, Michael Winner, and Sam Peckinpah, most of which were collaborations in traditionally masculine-themed genres like westerns and action films, Fielding's background in jazz gave him the versatility to produce such diverse works as The Nightcomers (1972), a neo-romantic musical score for acoustic orchestra (reputed to be the work of which he was most proud), to Demon Seed (1977), a startling musical work that included electronic instruments and non-tonal passages.

Personal life

Fielding married twice, first to Kay Kyser band production assistant Ann Parks in December 1946 in Tijuana. The couple adopted two children. This marriage ended in the spring of 1963. His second marriage began on August 6, 1963, to Camille J. Williams, a Las Vegas dancer. They had two children.

He died at the age of 57 from a heart attack followed by congestive heart failure while in Toronto where he was scoring the motion picture Funeral Home. He was survived by wife Camille and two daughters: Claudia and Elizabeth. He is interred in Crypt 30 at Glen Haven Memorial Park in Los Angeles.^[1]

Awards and nominations

References

On Saturday November 18th 2009 Jerry fielding was awarded a lifetime achievement award for his composition in "The Wild Bunch" which celebrated it's 35th anniversary.It was received by his daughter Claudia Fielding.

Bibliography

• Gelfand, Steve. Television Theme Recordings: An Illustrated Discography, 1951-1994. Ann Arbor, MI: Popular Culture, Ink., 1994
• "Jerry Fielding, Writer of Scores for Movies; Named for 3 Oscars" New York Times, February 19, 1980, page B4.
• Redman, Nick. “Jerry Fielding” Dictionary of American Biography, Supplement 10: 1976-1980. Charles Scribner's Sons, 1995. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center, Gale, 2008.
• Terrace, Vincent. Radio Programs, 1924-1984. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1999.

External links

• Jerry Fielding at the Internet Movie Database
• Demon Seed score on compact disc
• Jerry Fielding, From the Bands to the Films - interview by Les Tomkins in 1974
• Jerry Fielding Interview - a conversation with David Raksin; Originally published in Soundtrack Magazine No.58, 1980
• Jerry Fielding Biography and LP Discography
• Film Discography from Soundtrack Collector
• Jerry Fielding at Find a Grave