Jerry Goldsmith was one of the most prolific film and television composers, with almost 200 scores to his credit, as well as being a consistent award winner in both mediums. His music is omnipresent in the American psyche, most notably in one of the creepy themes from The Twilight Zone. Unlike many film composers, he had few immediately identifiable traits; instead, he seemed to subsume his identity to that of the film and its moods. He did not, however, avoid innovation; some of his experiments with music for science fiction films, such as the adaptations of standard orchestral instruments for the score of his 1968 The Planet of the Apes, were on the leading edge of innovation when he created them.
He studied theory and composition with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco and later, composing for film with Miklós Rózsa. His first job in entertainment was as a typist with CBS Television, but his talent was soon recognized, and he first wrote music for radio serials and later, the themes for several famous shows, including Perry Mason and The Man From UNCLE. 1952 saw his first film score (uncredited) for the Marilyn Monroe vehicle Don't Bother to Knock. In 1960, he began composing for Revue Studios, where he wrote the music for Lonely Are the Brave, now considered a classic score. He followed this with successes such as Stagecoach, Planet of the Apes (which he conducted while wearing one of the ape masks), Patton, Chinatown, and his first score to win an Academy Award: The Omen (1976). In 1979, he wrote his first Star Trek film score, and in 2002, he wrote another, Star Trek: Nemesis. During the '80s and '90s, he wrote for such blockbusters as the various Rambo films, Basic Instinct, L.A. Confidential, and the animated film, Mulan. ~ Ann Feeney, All Music Guide
Career Highlights: Chinatown, Planet of the Apes, L.A. Confidential
First Major Screen Credit: Don't Bother to Knock (1952)
Biography
An extraordinarily prolific composer whose productivity and versatility rank him with the likes of Ennio Morricone, Jerry Goldsmith scored well over 200 films and television programs over a career spanning nearly half a century. Goldsmith's music, which has been used for just about every imaginable film and television genre, is known in part for the composer's use of bass drums and deliberately discordant "stings" during action or suspense sequences. These stylistic trademarks were put to use with great success in 1997, with Goldsmith's score for L.A. Confidential, for which he garnered Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations, as well as a new generation of fans.
A native of Los Angeles, where he was born on February 10, 1929, Goldsmith received classical training in piano and composition before studying film composition with Hollywood veteran Miklos Rozsa at the University of California. Much of Rozsa's stylistic influence was to stay with Goldsmith during his subsequent TV and radio work. After college, the young composer got a job with CBS Television's music department. He started out in the bottom ranks, working as a clerk typist, but soon was given the opportunity to put his talents to work. After writing music for various CBS radio shows, Goldsmith started scoring for television, providing music for shows like Gunsmoke, Perry Mason, Have Gun Will Travel, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and perhaps most memorably, The Twilight Zone.
It was also during the 1950s that Goldsmith began composing for film: he made his uncredited debut with Don't Bother to Knock, a 1952 psychological drama starring Marilyn Monroe. The 1957 Western Black Patch was another early effort, done during Goldsmith's last years with CBS. In 1960, he was hired by legendary film composer Alfred Newman to work at Revue Studios and it was there that Goldsmith began one of the most productive stages of his career. Scoring his first major feature in 1962, Lonely Are the Brave, Goldsmith spent the rest of the decade working at an amazingly rapid pace: at the height of his productivity, he was estimated to write about six scores a week. Some highlights of this period include his music for Freud (a 1962 film that garnered Goldsmith his first Best Score Oscar nomination), The List of Adrian Messenger (1963), Stagecoach (1966), and Planet of the Apes (1968), the last of which he composed while wearing a monkey mask (and secured his third Best Score Oscar nomination for his efforts).
In addition to endless employment opportunities, the following decade brought further critical acclaim and recognition for the composer. Supplying scores for no less than 50 films, Goldsmith received Best Score Academy Award nominations for six, including Patton (1970), the 1973 Steve McQueen/Dustin Hoffman action drama Papillon, Roman Polanski's classic film noir potboiler Chinatown (1974), and The Omen, a 1976 horror classic that netted Goldsmith an Academy Award. He also further endeared himself to sci-fi enthusiasts everywhere by composing music for Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) and Alien (also 1979).
During the 1980s and 1990s, Goldsmith continued to work steadily, scoring at least two major films a year. Some of his better-known work included Poltergeist (1982), Gremlins (1984), the Rambo series, Total Recall (1990), Basic Instinct (1992), and .A. Confidential. His work on the last film earned him particular acclaim: in addition to netting him his 17th Oscar nomination, the score placed Goldsmith on many music critics' "Year's Ten Best" lists and gave him recognition among a new generation of fans. The following year, he earned another Oscar nomination, for his score for Disney's animated Mulan, and continued to work prolifically. After scoring three other films that same year, Goldsmith provided the music for The Mummy in 1999, ably demonstrating that age had not slowed him down in the least. After ushering in the new millenium with scores for such features as Hollow Man, Along Came a Spider, The Sum of All Fears, and Looney Tunes: Back in Action, the aging composer's difficult struggle with cancer made it difficult to keep up the near feverish work pace that had seemingly defined his career. On July 21, 2004, mere months after celebrating all things Hollywood by providing the score for the 76th Annual Academy Awards, Goldsmith finally succumbed to the devastating effects of cancer. He was 75.
Goldsmith was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of Tessa (née Rappaport), an artist, and Morris Goldsmith, a structural engineer.[1] He learned to play the piano at age six. At fourteen, he studied composition, theory and counterpoint with teachers Jacob Gimpel and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. Goldsmith attended the University of Southern California, where he attended courses taught by veteran composer Miklós Rózsa. Goldsmith developed an interest in writing scores for movies after being inspired by Rózsa.
Goldsmith also composed for The Waltons TV series (including its famous theme), a fanfare for the Academy Awards presentation show and the score for one of the Disneyland Resort's most popular attractions, Soarin' Over California. Goldsmith never cared for the term "film composer", as he also wrote a fair amount of "absolute" music for the concert hall as well (such as "Music For Orchestra", which was premiered by Leonard Slatkin and the Minnesota Orchestra in 1970).
As a lover of innovation and adaptation
Goldsmith was a lover of innovation and adaptation, and the use of strange instruments. His score for Alien for example featured an orchestra augmented by shofar, steel drum and serpent (a 16th century instrument), while creating further "alien" sounds by filtering string pizzicati through an echoplex. Many of the instruments in Alien were used in such atypical ways they were virtually unidentifiable. During the 80s, with the development of more sophisticated synthesizers and technology such as MIDI, Goldsmith started to abandon acoustical solutions to create unusual timbres, and relied more and more on digital instruments. He continued to champion the use of orchestras however (to which, for him, electronics were merely an adjunct). He also remained a studious researcher of ethnic music, and utilized South American Zampoñas in Under Fire, native tribal chants in Congo, and interwove a traditional Irish folk melody with African rhythms in The Ghost and the Darkness. His concept for creation and innovation delighted his fans -- and often intimidated his peers. Henry Mancini, another film-music composer, once admitted that Goldsmith "scares the hell out of us."
Goldsmith's London connection
Although born and raised in Los Angeles, Goldsmith had much affection for the city of London, where he recorded many of his scores, and even maintained a home there for a time. He also conducted many concerts of his music in London, and once said during an interview on BBC Radio that he felt the British musicians were the best in the world.[citation needed]
Final scores
Goldsmith's final theatrical score was for the 2003 live action/animated film Looney Tunes: Back in Action. His score for the Richard Donner film Timeline the same year was rejected during the complicated post-production process; however, Goldsmith's score has since been released on CD, not long after his death.
One of Goldsmith's least-heard scores was for the 1985Ridley Scott film Legend. Director Scott had commissioned Goldsmith to write an orchestral score for the movie, but was initially heard only in European theatres, and replaced with electronic music and pop songs for the American release due to studio politics (it has since been restored for DVD release).
It is said that the prologue to the 1965 movie The Agony and The Ecstasy, written in the days when he was lesser-known, remained up until the very end of his career one of Jerry Goldsmith's personal favourites.[2]
The score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture is regarded by many as the composer's most impressive. Goldsmith was charged with depicting a universe with his music, and so it is extremely expansive. But Goldsmith's initial main theme was not well-received by the filmmakers (director Robert Wise felt, "It sounds like sailing ships" [3]). Although somewhat irked by its rejection, Goldsmith consented to re-work his initial idea and finally arrived at the soaring, majestic theme which was ultimately used (and which remains instantly recognizable today). The core of the main theme bears some resemblance to that of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., scored by Goldsmith in 1964.
Yet there are many other facets to this score. The opening sequence features a theme for the Klingons, a clarion call introduced by woodwinds, accompanied by angklungs (bamboo rattles from Indonesia). Goldsmith would reprise this Klingon theme in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and for Worf in the subsequent scores. The love theme for Ilia was used for the overture (this and The Walt Disney Company's The Black Hole were the last two feature films to have an overture). Goldsmith also came up with a signature sound for V'Ger by using Craig Huxley's "Blaster Beam" (a long, narrow metal box, equipped with low, electronically amplified piano strings, which the player strikes with an artillery shell casing and mallet). Goldsmith also utilized a large pipe organ, which required the score be recorded at 20th Century Fox (which had the only scoring stage in Los Angeles equipped with such an organ).
Alexander Courage, who composed the theme for the original Star Trek television series, was a friend of Goldsmith's, and served as his orchestrator on several scores. Courage also provided a new arrangement of his theme from the original series for use in Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Another of the original series' composers, Fred Steiner, provided a few minor cues based on Goldsmith's original material (as deadlines prevented Goldsmith from completing every last scene). A considerable portion of the score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture was conducted by an uncredited Lionel Newman; Goldsmith, owing to the unusual instrumental blends, preferred to monitor the balance in the recording booth.
On the Planet of the Apes DVD commentary track, he explains why he didn't score the final scene: "Charlton Heston was a bit over the top by himself," and didn't need any score to accompany him.
He considered his score for The Secret of NIMH one of his best. He even asked for another three weeks to refine the score and make it perfect, which he wasn't under contract to do. He also said it was one of his hardest to compose, due to the full film not yet being completed when he started to score it.
With help from fellow composer Joel McNeely, he composed and recorded the score to Air Force One in just three weeks. (Goldsmith later said he would never again take on a replacement score with such little time available.)
In 1997, he composed a new theme for the Universal Studios opening logo.
Goldsmith lived with his wife, former teacher and singer Carol Heather Goldsmith, in Beverly Hills. She composed lyrics for, and sang in the additional track "The Piper Dreams" for the soundtrack of The Omen, as well as a song from the film Caboblanco.
He died after a long struggle with colon cancer, ending a long and memorable career in film scoring.
His daughter, Carrie Goldsmith, is currently working on a biography of her father, the first chapter of which can be read on her younger brother's website.[6]
Throughout the '90s, he sported long hair that he pulled back into a neat ponytail. This became his signature look. In concert, Goldsmith often would recount a story of how Sean Connery copied Goldsmith's hairstyle for the 1992 film Medicine Man. In the film's closing credits, Goldsmith is listed as "hair designer." He cut his hair in 2002, after more than a decade with the ponytail.
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