Jerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer, conductor and orchestrator with a career in film and television scoring that spanned nearly 50 years and over 200 productions, between 1954 and 2003. He was considered one of film music's most innovative and influential composers. He was nominated for eighteen Academy Awards, six Grammy Awards, five Primetime Emmy Awards, nine Golden Globe Awards, and four British Academy Film Awards.
He composed scores for five films in the Star Trek franchise and three in the Rambo franchise, as well as for films including Logan's Run, Planet of the Apes, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Patton, Papillon, Chinatown, The Omen, Alien, Poltergeist, The Secret of NIMH, Medicine Man, Gremlins, Hoosiers, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Air Force One, L.A. Confidential, Mulan, Rudy and The Mummy. He also composed the current fanfare for the Universal Pictures logo, which debuted in The Lost World: Jurassic Park.
He frequently collaborated with directors including Paul Verhoeven, Franklin J. Schaffner, Richard Fleischer, Fred Schepisi, Michael Crichton, Jack Smight, Gordon Douglas, J. Lee Thompson, Paul Wendkos, John Frankenheimer, and Joe Dante.
Early life and education
Goldsmith was born on February 10, 1929, in Los Angeles, California. His parents were Tessa, a school teacher, and Morris Goldsmith, a structural engineer. His grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Europe. He started playing piano at age six, but only "got serious" by the time he was eleven. At age thirteen, he studied piano privately with concert pianist and educator Jakob Gimpel and by the age of sixteen he was studying both theory and counterpoint under Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, who also tutored such noteworthy composers and musicians as Henry Mancini, Nelson Riddle, Herman Stein, André Previn, Marty Paich, and John Williams.At age sixteen, Goldsmith saw the 1945 film Spellbound and was inspired by Miklós Rózsa's unconventional score to pursue a career in music. Goldsmith later enrolled and attended the University of Southern California where he was able to attend courses by Rózsa, but dropped out in favor of a more "practical music program" at the Los Angeles City College. There he was able to coach singers, work as an assistant choral director, play piano accompaniment, and work as an assistant conductor.
Film and television scoring
1950s and work at CBS
In 1950, Goldsmith found work at CBS as a clerk typist in the network's music department under director Lud Gluskin. There he began writing scores for such radio shows as CBS Radio Workshop, Frontier Gentleman, and Romance. In an interview with Andy Velez from BarnesandNoble.com, Goldsmith recalled: "It was about 1950. CBS had a workshop, and once a week the employees, whatever their talents, whether they were ushers or typists, would produce a radio show. But you had to be an employee. They needed someone to do music, and I knew someone there who said I'd be great for this. I'd just gotten married and needed a job, so they faked a typing test for me. Then I could do these shows. About six months later, the music department heard what I did, liked it, and gave me a job." He later progressed into scoring such live CBS television shows as Climax! and Playhouse 90. He also scored multiple episodes of the television series The Twilight Zone. He remained at CBS until 1960, after which he moved on to Revue Studios and then to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for producer Norman Felton, whom he had worked for during live TV and would later compose music for shows produced by MGM Television such as Dr. Kildare and The Man from U.N.C.L.E..His feature film debut occurred when he composed the music for the western Black Patch. He continued with scores to such films as the western Face of a Fugitive, and the science fiction film City of Fear.
1960s
Goldsmith began the decade composing for such television shows as Dr. Kildare, Gunsmoke, and Thriller as well as the drama film The Spiral Road. However, he began receiving widespread name-recognition only after his intimate score to the western Lonely Are the Brave. His involvement in the picture was the result of a recommendation by composer Alfred Newman who had been impressed with Goldsmith's score on the television show Thriller and took it upon himself to recommend Goldsmith to the head of Universal's music department, despite having never met him. That same year, Goldsmith composed the mostly atonal and dissonant score to the biopic Freud that depicted a five-year period of the life of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Goldsmith's score led to him gaining his first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score, though he lost to fellow first-time nominee Maurice Jarre for his music to Lawrence of Arabia. Goldsmith composed a score to The Stripper, his first collaboration with director Franklin J. Schaffner for whom Goldsmith would later score the films Planet of the Apes, Patton, Papillon, Islands in the Stream, The Boys from Brazil and Lionheart.Following his success with Lonely Are the Brave and Freud, Goldsmith composed the theme music for The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and scores to such films as the western Rio Conchos, the political thriller Seven Days in May, the romantic drama A Patch of Blue, the war film In Harm's Way, the World War I air combat film The Blue Max, the period naval war drama The Sand Pebbles, the thriller Warning Shot, the western Hour of the Gun, and the mystery The Detective. He almost did not accept the assignment for The Blue Max when he watched the final cut with the producers who had temp-tracked it with Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra. He said: "I admit it worked fairly well but my first reaction was to get up and walk away from the job, but I couldn't. Once you've heard music like that with the picture, it makes your own scoring more difficult to arrive at, it clouds your thinking." Goldsmith's scores to A Patch of Blue and The Sand Pebbles garnered him his second and third Academy Award nominations, respectively, and were both one of the 250 nominees for the American Film Institute's top twenty-five American film scores. His scores for Seven Days in May and The Sand Pebbles also garnered Goldsmith his first two respective Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Original Score in 1965 and 1967. During this time, he also composed for many lighter, comedic films such as the family comedy The Trouble with Angels, the James Bond parodies Our Man Flint and its sequel In Like Flint, and the comedy The Flim-Flam Man.
Goldsmith gained attention for the score of the post-apocalyptic science fiction film Planet of the Apes, which was one of the first to be written entirely in an Avant garde style. When scoring Planet of the Apes, Goldsmith used such innovative techniques as looping drums into an echoplex, using the orchestra to imitate the grunting sounds of apes, having horns blown without mouthpieces, and instructing the woodwind players to finger their keys without using any air. He also used stainless steel mixing bowls, among other objects, to create unique percussive sounds. The score resulted in another Goldsmith nomination for the Best Original Score Oscar and ranks in 18 on the American Film Institute's top twenty-five American film scores. Though he did not return to compose for its sequel Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Goldsmith scored the third installment in the Planet of the Apes franchise, Escape from the Planet of the Apes.
Goldsmith concluded the decade with scores to such films as the western Bandolero!, the spy thriller The Chairman, the science fiction film The Illustrated Man, and the western 100 Rifles. He composed the theme for the comedy-drama television series Room 222 which debuted in 1969.
1970s
Throughout the score for the World War II biographical film Patton, Goldsmith used an echoplex to loop recorded sounds of "call to war" triplets played on the trumpet that musically represented General George S. Patton's belief in reincarnation. The main theme also consisted of a symphonic march accompanied by a pipe organ to represent the protagonist's militaristic and deeply religious nature. The film's music subsequently earned Goldsmith an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score and was one of the American Film Institute's 250 nominees for the top twenty-five American film scores. Goldsmith's critical success continued with his emotional score to the prison escape film Papillon, which also earned him an Academy Award nomination. In the early 1970s, Goldsmith also wrote the themes for two wildly different TV series, Barnaby Jones and The Waltons.Goldsmith was faced with the daunting task of replacing a score by composer Phillip Lambro to the neo-film noir Chinatown. With only ten days to compose and record an entirely new score, Goldsmith quickly produced a score that mixed an eastern music sound with elements of jazz in an ensemble that only featured a trumpet, four pianos, four harps, two percussionists, and a string section. Goldsmith received an Academy Award nomination for his efforts though he lost to Nino Rota and Carmine Coppola for The Godfather Part II. The score to Chinatown ranks 9 on the AFI's list of top 25 American film scores. It was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score.
Goldsmith earned further critical praise with his score to the period adventure film The Wind and the Lion, which relied upon a diverse ensemble including many Moroccan instruments and a large percussion section. The score garnered Goldsmith an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score, though he lost to John Williams for his score to Jaws. The Wind and the Lion was also one of the AFI's 250 nominees for the top twenty-five American film scores.
Goldsmith composed a dark choral score to the horror film The Omen, which was the first film score to feature the use of a choir in an avant-garde style. The score was successful among critics and garnered Goldsmith his only Academy Award for Best Original Score and a nomination for Best Original Song for "Ave Satani". His wife, Carol Heather Goldsmith, also wrote lyrics and performed a vocal track titled "The Piper Dreams" released solely on the soundtrack album. Goldsmith would go on to compose for two more entries in the franchise; Damien - Omen II and Omen III: The Final Conflict.
He continued to have critical success with scores to such films as the dystopian science fiction Logan's Run, the period drama Islands in the Stream, the science fiction suspense Coma, the science fiction thriller Capricorn One, the disaster film The Swarm, the period comedy The Great Train Robbery, and his Academy Award-nominated score to the science fiction thriller The Boys from Brazil, in which he utilized lively waltzes juxtaposed against the film's concept of cloning Adolf Hitler.
Goldsmith composed a score to the science fiction film Alien. His score featured an orchestra augmented by an Indian conch horn, didgeridoo, steel drum, and serpent, while creating further "alien" sounds by delaying string pizzicati through an echoplex. Many of the instruments were used in such atypical ways they were virtually unidentifiable. His score was, however, heavily edited during post-production and Goldsmith was required to rewrite music for several scenes. In the final score several pieces were moved, replaced, or cut. Director Ridley Scott and editor Terry Rawlings also, without Goldsmith's consent, purchased the rights to the "Main Title" from Freud which they used during the acid blood sequence. Despite the heavy edits and rewrites, Goldsmith's score for the film earned him a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Original Score and was one of the AFI's 250 nominees for the top twenty-five American film scores.
Goldsmith concluded the decade composing the score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Having been Gene Roddenberry's initial choice to compose the original Star Trek pilot "The Cage" yet being unable to do so due to scheduling conflicts, Goldsmith was the first pick of both Paramount Pictures and director Robert Wise to compose a score for The Motion Picture. Faced with composing a new Star Trek theme for the film, Goldsmith initially struggled for inspiration, and proceeded to compose as much of the score as possible before the need to develop the main title theme. His initial score for the scene in which the newly-refitted Starship Enterprise is revealed to the audience was not well received by the filmmakers, director Robert Wise feeling that it lacked a strong thematic hook and evoked sailing ships. Though somewhat irked by its rejection, Goldsmith consented to re-work his initial idea and finally arrived at the Star Trek theme which was ultimately used. The film's soundtrack also provided a debut for the Blaster Beam, an electronic instrument long, created by musician Craig Huxley. The Blaster had steel wires connected to amplifiers fitted to the main piece of aluminum; the device was played with an artillery shell. Goldsmith heard it and immediately decided to use it for V'Ger's cues. An enormous pipe organ first plays the V'Ger theme on the Enterprises approach, a literal indication of the machine's power. His score for The Motion Picture earned him Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations, and was one of the AFI's 250 nominees for the top twenty-five American film scores. Goldsmith would later compose the scores for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier , Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Insurrection, and Star Trek: Nemesis, as well as the theme to the television series Star Trek: Voyager in 1995. In addition, his theme for The Motion Picture, as arranged by Dennis McCarthy, was reused as the theme for Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987.