TV/Film Composer Goldsmith Dies

"Twilight Zone."
"Perry Mason."
"Patton."
"Planet Of The Apes."
"Rambo."

If you've watched some of the most successful television shows or movies in the past half century, chances are you've heard Jerry Goldsmith's music.

The Academy Award-winning composer, 75, died in his sleep Wednesday night at his Beverly Hills home, Lois Carruth, his personal assistant, told CBS Radio News.

"He has had cancer for a couple of years and we knew that it would be any time now," she said.

A classically trained composer and conductor who began musical studies at age 6, Goldsmith's award-dappled Hollywood career — he was nominated for 17 Academy Awards, won one, and also took home five Emmys — spanned nearly half a century.

He crafted an astonishing number of TV and movie scores that have become classics in their own right. From the clarions of "Patton" to the syrupy theme for TV's "The Waltons," Goldsmith sometimes seemed virtually synonymous with soundtracks.

He took on action hits such as "Total Recall," which he considered one of his best scores, as well as the "Star Trek" movies and more lightweight fare, like his most recent movie theme, for last year's "Looney Tunes: Back in Action." His hundreds of works included scores for "The Blue Max," "L.A. Confidential," "Basic Instinct" and "Chinatown."

Goldsmith's output also spilled into television, with the themes for shows including "Dr. Kildare," "Barnaby Jones" and "Star Trek: The Next Generation." He also wrote a fanfare that is used in Academy Awards telecasts.

He won his Oscar for best original score in 1976 for "The Omen." He also earned five Emmy Awards and was nominated for nine Golden Globe awards, though he never won one.

"He could write anything. He did Westerns, comedies," Carruth said. "He preferred writing for more character-driven, quiet films but somehow they kept coming back to him for the action films."

Carruth, who had known Goldsmith since the 1950s when they both were at 20th Century Fox, said his head was always filled with music, ranging from TV themes to classical music.

"He just seemed to have all those notes rolling around in his head, but then they all came out sounding beautifully," she said.

Despite the cancer, he kept composing, finishing a movie score last year.

"When he would have a cold or the flu or some such thing, he would still be writing every day. He was a very disciplined man, and he kept a very rigid schedule," she said.

When he was composing he was dead serious, but when he recorded the theme for "Planet of the Apes," he showed his sense of humor by wearing an ape mask. "Everybody got a laugh out of it," Carruth said.

Born Feb. 10, 1929 in Los Angeles, Goldsmith studied with famed pianist Jacob Gimpel and pianist, composer and film musician Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. He fell in love with movie composing when he saw the 1945 Ingrid Bergman movie "Spellbound," Carruth said, and while attending the University of California took classes with Miklos Rozsa, who wrote the Oscar-winning score for that film.

In 1950, he got a job as a clerk typist at CBS and eventually got assignments for live radio shows, writing as much as one score a week. He later turned to television.

In the late 1950s he began composing for movies. His career took off in the 1960s with such major films as "Lonely Are the Brave" and "The Blue Max." He earned his first Academy Award nomination for his work on 1962's "Freud."

Goldsmith was know for his versatility and his experimentation. He added electronics to the woodwinds and brasses of his scores. For 1968's "Planet of the Apes," he got a blaring effect by having his musicians blow horns without mouthpieces. With a puckish sense of humor, he reportedly wore an ape mask while conducting the score.

"He experimented a lot and that's what made him so popular with his fans," Carruth said. "When he wrote, he got inside of the characters and he wrote what he felt they were thinking and feeling."

Some of his motion picture scores were adapted for ballets. Goldsmith also wrote composed orchestral pieces and taught occasional music classes at local universities.

He is survived by his wife, Carol; children Aaron, Joel, Carrie, Ellen Edson and Jennifer Grossman, six grandchildren and a great-grandchild.