Let's all bow our heads and take a minute to pay our respects to a man
whose staggering talent helped to make so may of our favorite films
and TV shows that much better.

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Oscar-Winning Composer Jerry Goldsmith Dies in L.A.

By Arthur Spiegelman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Jerry Goldsmith, an Oscar- and Emmy-winning
film and TV composer so prolific that hardly a day goes by when one of
his works is not being played somewhere in the world, has died at age
75, his family said on Thursday.

His 200 film scores include: "Alien," "Star Trek: The Motion Picture,"
"Chinatown," "Patton," "MacArthur," "Planet of the Apes," "L.A.
Confidential," "Basic Instinct." "A Patch of Blue," "Poltergeist."
"Rambo - First Blood, Part 2" and "Freud."

Goldsmith won an Oscar for his score for the 1976 horror thriller "The
Omen" and also received a best song nomination for his song in that
film, in which he reversed "Ave Maria" making it into a hymn for the
devil, "Ave Satani."

Goldsmith composed the theme music for several hit TV series including
"The Waltons," "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," "Dr. Kildare," "Barnaby
Jones" and "Star Trek: Voyager." He also composed a fanfare for the
annual Academy Awards (news - web sites) which is still being used.

He died in his sleep on Wednesday night at his Beverly Hills home
after a long battle with cancer, his family said.

A five-time Emmy Award winner, Goldsmith also received 17 Academy
Award nominations over a career spanning nearly a half century. His
only Oscar was for "The Omen," in which Gregory Peck (news) leads a
doomed effort to stop the son of Satan from growing up and taking over
the world.

Goldsmith's widow, Carol, told Reuters her husband always refused to
choose a favorite among his works saying, "My favorite score is the
one I haven't written yet."

She added, "He also used to lecture his film school students that if
they were scoring a scene for a man on a horse galloping away, you
don't score the gallop but you score the fear of the rider."

He won fame in the industry for the speed with which he composed and
recorded a new score for "Chinatown," after the producers had rejected
a score by another composer. "Chinatown" producer Robert Evans said
the score was written in nine days and saved the 1974 film from disaster.

John Burlingame said in the Variety International Film Guide that the
"Chinatown" score "written for an unusual ensemble of four pianos,
four harps, strings, two percussionists and trumpet .... is now a
classic of the private eye genre."

Besides his wife, Goldsmith is survived by five children, six
grandchildren and a great-grandchild.

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The industry has lost a giant. Rest in peace, Jerry.

-J