Leading Film Composer Jerry Goldsmith Dies

Jerry Goldsmith, Academy Award-winning film composer died yesterday of cancer at the age of 75. Here’s a tribute from Filmtracks:

Jerry Goldsmith has been an awesome inspiration for two generations, scoring masterpieces that range from the early 60’s to the present. His scores have been essential in promoting the fine art of film music composition. A vast knowledge of music history and structure has enabled him to create a wide variety of moods in the films he has scored. Conducting in his jeans, brightly colored shirts and ties, with his sleeves rolled up and ready for action, Goldsmith is known in the industry as a great and admirable personality.

The last two decades of Goldsmith’s career have proven to be the most diverse years in Goldsmith’s impressive career. After mastering the technique of combining orchestra and electronics in the two previous decades, his experience has made him one of the most versatile composers in the world. At the same time, though, he has been criticized by film music experts for the lack of epic, thematically influential scores in the latter stages of his career. Goldsmith’s willingness to take on such projects as Mom and Dad Save the World and Dennis the Menace alienated many of those who were his closest fans in the days of The Wind and the Lion and Chinatown, but enlightened an entirely new generation of film music fans. Goldsmith’s quest for new challenges, leading to this new range of quirky, smaller films, has produced such wonderful efforts as Gremlins and The ‘Burbs.

So popular is Goldsmith’s career that nearly every work he has produced has been pressed onto a CD album. Those few that don’t exist on album are the frightful cases in which the master tapes of Goldsmith’s recordings are likely lost. In the 1990’s there were two collectible CDs that expertly capture the essense of Jerry Goldsmith: in 1993, The Society for the Preservation of Film Music gave 500+ CD’s to those who attended the annual dinner (which that year honored Jerry Goldsmith). Now, at an estimated price of $500+, it is one of the most collectible soundtrack-related CDs of all time. All of the music it contains was unreleased at the time. The other great Goldsmith compilation CD is a collection of suites and themes released by the Master Film Music series in 1988 and has the live music most often heard on Goldsmith’s concert tours. Originally valued at about $100-$125, this album’s recording has since been offered on other CD releases and is no longer a collectible.

A frequent source for compilation cues and re-recordings, Goldsmith’s work has been at the center of many third-party CD offerings since 1997. Varese Sarabande released a compilation album called “Frontiers,” including the best of his sci-fi music, and several other labels followed with world-wide re-recordings in a similar fashion. Expanded re-releases of many of Goldsmith’s best works have also graced record stores, including Patton, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Stagecoach, A Patch of Blue, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Rio Conchos, The Swarm, and Poltergeist, and have spoiled film music fans with crisp-sounding, complete CD releases of his best works. At the same time, with the volume of work that Goldsmith has produced, many of his smaller efforts of the 1990’s have completely gone out of print and disappeared from record stores, making life more difficult for collectors and Goldsmith “completists.”

…In 1998, he was nominated for an Academy Award for his epic score for the animated film Mulan, his first and very successful teaming with Disney. At the same time, his fans have been delighted by his loyalty to his most famous franchise, scoring three Next Generation Star Trek films late into his career. The older generation of fans will insist, however, that Goldsmith’s prime existed in from 1970 to 1990, with several of his most classic scores including Hoosiers, The Russia House, The Wind and the Lion, Patton, and Under Fire. Whatever comes next, whether it be action, romance, sci-fi, or westerns, Goldsmith is always ready to tackle a score with enthusiasm and creativity, and provide fans with endless moments of movie music magic.

IMDb has a mini-bio:

Born February 1929, Jerry Goldsmith studied piano with Jacob Gimpel and composition, theory and counterpoint with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. He also attended classes in film composition given by ‘Miklos Rozsa’ at the Univeristy of Southern California. In 1950, he was employed as a clerk typist in the music department at CBS. Here he was given his first embryonic assignments as a composer for radio shows such as ‘Romance’ and ‘CBS Radio Workshop’. He wrote one score a week for these shows which were performed live on transmission. He stayed with CBS until 1960, having already scored ‘The Twilight Zone’. He was hired by Revue Studios to score their ‘Thriller’ series. It was here that he met the influential film composer Alfred Newman who hired Goldsmith to score the film ‘Lonely Are The Brave’ (1963), his first major feature film score. An experimentalist, Goldsmith is constantly pushing forward the bounds of film music: Planet of the Apes (1968) included horns blown without mouthpieces and a bass clarinetist fingering the notes but not blowing. He is unafraid to use the wide variety of electronic sounds and instruments which are now available, although he does not use them for their own sake.

You can leave a message on the tribute forum at Jerry Goldsmith Online.

Here are his awards and nominations:

2003
Saturn Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – Looney Tunes Back In Action

2001
Saturn Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – The Hollow Man

2000
Hollywood Film Awards
Winner

Saturn Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – The Mummy

Apex Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – The Mummy

1999
The Recording Academy’s Los Angeles Chapter
The Governors Award

Hollywood Film Festival
Hollywood Outstanding Achievement In Music In Film Award

1998
Academy Awards
Nominee, Best Original Musical or Comedy Score – Mulan

Annie Awards
Winner, Outstanding Individual Achievement for Music in an Animated Feature Production – Mulan

Golden Globes
Nominee, Best Original Score – Mulan

Anime Awards
Winner, Music In An Animated Feature Film – Mulan

Fennecus Awards
Nominee, Original Score – Mulan
Nominee, Original Score – Star Trek Insurrection

Apex Awards
Winner, Original Musical Score – Mulan
Nominee, Original Score – Star Trek Insurrection

Nortel Palm Springs International Film Festival
Frederick Lowe Award

1997
Academy Awards
Nominee, Best Original Dramatic Score – L.A. Confidential

Golden Globes
Nominee, Best Original Score – L.A. Confidential

BAFTA
Nominee, Best Original Score – LA Confidential

Golden Satellite Awards
Nominee, Original Score – L.A. Confidential

Apex Awards
Nominee, Original Score – L.A. Confidential
Nominee, Original Score – Air Force One

1996
Fennecus Awards
Winner, Original Score – Star Trek First Contact

Apex Awards
Winner, Original Score – Star Trek First Contact
Nominee, Original Score – The Ghost And The Darkness

1995
Emmy Awards
Winner, Best Television Theme – Star Trek Voyager

Apex Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – Congo

1994
Apex Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – The River Wild
Nominee, Best Original Score – The Shadow

Fennecus Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – The Shadow

1993
Society For The Preservation Of Film Music
Winner, Career Achievement Award

1992
Academy Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – Basic Instinct

Golden Globes
Nominee, Best Original Score – Basic Instinct

University Of Southern California
Winner, Almui Merit Award

1990
American Society Of Music Arrangers And Conductors
Winner, The Golden Score Award

Apex Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – Gremlins 2: The New Batch

Fennecus Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – Gremlins 2: The New Batch

1989
Fennecus Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – Star Trek V: The Final Frontier

1987
Winner, Richard Kirk Award for achievement
Winner, Yamaha Award for achievement

1986
Academy Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – Hoosiers

Academy Of Sci-Fi
Nominee, Best Original Score – Poltergiest II: The Other Side

Academy Of Sci-Fi
Nominee, Best Original Score – Link

1984
Saturn Awards
Winner, Best Original Score – Gremlins

1983
Academy Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – Under Fire

Golden Globes
Nominee, Best Original Score – Under Fire

1982
Academy Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – Poltergeist

National Film Society
Winner, Max Steiner Award For Achievement
Winner, Edgar Allan Poe Award – Poltergiest

1980
Emmy Awards
Winner, Best Original TV Mini Series Score – Masada

Grammy Awards
Nominee, Best Original TV Score – Masada

1979
Academy Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – Star Trek: The Motion Picture

Golden Globes
Nominee, Best Original Score – Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Nominee, Best Original Score – Alien

Grammy Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – Alien

British Film Society Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – Alien

Academy Of Sci-Fi
Nominee, Best Original Score – Magic

Academy Of Sci-Fi
Nominee, Best Original Score – Star Trek The Motion Picture

1978
Academy Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – The Boys from Brazil

Academy Of Sci-Fi
Nominee, Best Original Score – The Boys From Brazil

1976
Academy Awards
Winner, Best Original Score – The Omen
Nominee, Best Original Song – “Ave Satani” from The Omen

Grammy Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – The Omen

1975
Academy Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – The Wind and the Lion

Emmy Awards
Winner, Best Original TV Movie Score – Babe

Grammy Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – The Wind & The Lion

British Film Society Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – The Wind & The Lion

1974
Academy Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – Chinatown

Golden Globes
Nominee, Best Original Score – Chinatown

Emmy Awards
Winner, Best Original TV Mini Series Score – QBVII

Grammy Awards
Nominee, Best Original TV Score – QBVII

British Film Society Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – Chinatown

1973

Academy Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – Papillon

Emmy Awards
Winner, Best Original TV Movie Score – Red Pony

1970
Academy Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – Patton

1968
Academy Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – Planet of the Apes

1966
Academy Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – The Sand Pebbles

Golden Globes
Nominee, Best Original Score – The Sand Pebbles

1965
Academy Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – A Patch of Blue

1964
Golden Globes
Nominee, Best Original Score – Seven Days In May

Emmy Awards
Nominee, Best Original TV Theme – Man From U.N.C.L.E

Grammy Awards
Nominee, Best TV Theme – Man From U.N.C.L.E

1962
Academy Awards
Nominee, Best Original Score – Freud

1960
Emmy Awards
Nominee, Best Original TV Score – Thriller