JERRY GOLDSMITH 1929 - 2004

--Jerry Goldsmith, quoted in Fred Karlin's documentary Film Music Masters: Jerry Goldsmith

The last time I saw my friend Jerry Goldsmith was with Bob Townson as we presented him with Varese Sarabande's "JERRY GOLDSMITH AT 20TH CENTURY FOX" boxed set.

Though he was not feeling well that day, Jerry's spirits lifted instantly as he pulled the booklet from its black slipcase. Slowly, he poured over every title like he was exploring a photo album of his children, each one dear and special to him in a different way. He shared memories of working on those scores which spanned several decades of his life.

He was surprised and delighted when he was told that its entire run had sold out within days of its announcement. It meant a great deal to him that his fans continued to appreciate him so strongly.

Jerry cared deeply about his fans (I should know, I was one who first met my idol by stalking him as a rabid 9 year-old armed with overstuffed shopping bags crammed with soundtracks for him to autograph). Jerry was also a very private person and extremely shy. Even though it would sometimes embarrass him, I would often share with him tidbits from his supporters on the various film music sites. All of your love and appreciation gave him great comfort and pleasure.

The last opportunity Jerry had to connect with his public was two weeks ago when John Mauceri cell phoned him from the podium of the Hollywood Bowl smack dab in the middle of a concert so Jerry could hear the "Goldsmith Television Medley" he was about to conduct. At the final downbeat Mauceri hoisted his cell phone towards the audience so Jerry, lying at home, could take in the monstrous applause of 19,000 of his fans.

Jerry Goldsmith wrote music, not for himself, but to connect with others. He was very blessed to know that he succeeded in doing just that for so many years with some many people around the world.

Thank you all for letting him know much you cared.

Richard Kraft
Kraft-Engel Management

Jerrald King Goldsmith was born in Los Angeles on February 10, 1929, the son of Morris Goldsmith, a structural engineer, and his wife Tessie. Both parents were musically inclined and played instruments, and their son began learning the piano at the age of six, his interest growing through his childhood years. At 12 he began studying under the pianist Jakob Gimpel, whom he had heard perform at the Hollywood Bowl. At the age of 14, young Goldsmith decided that his true interest lay in composing not performing, and his ever supportive parents arranged for private lessons in music theory.

In his teen years, Goldsmith saw the Hitchcock film Spellbound, and the young man was so impressed by Miklos Rozsa's score that he decided to pursue a career in film music. He studied composition for three years with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, whose own feature film score credits include the classic And Then There Were None, and after graduating from high school he studied at the University of Southern California, taking a film music class from Rozsa himself. He transferred from USC to Los Angeles City College, where he was able to work with the radio, dance, and theater arts departments.

He was hired by CBS as a script typist in order to have a chance at taking part in their Radio Workshop, where employees were allowed to create and produce their own shows. After six months as a typist, he presented some of his compositions to Music Department head Lud Gluskin, and was hired for the department at the age of 23. Within a few years, he was hired to compose for CBS' live television programs, where he worked with directors whom he would later score features for, including such notable collaborators as Franklin J. Schaffner and John Frankenheimer. Live television proved to be remarkable training ground for the young composer, and in later years Goldsmith would remark on how unfortunate it is that no such venue exists for today's rising talents.

A radio program with William Conrad (later star of TV's Cannon) led to Goldsmith's first feature scoring job when Conrad recommended the young composer's work to a director friend, whereupon Goldsmith wrote the score for Black Patch, an obscure Western starring George Montgomery.

Though he scored the occasional feature during this period (including Studs Lonigan, whose intricate piano solos were performed by fellow rising composer "Johnny" Williams) he was making his greatest mark with his TV work, especially his scores for two anthology series. On The Twilight Zone, he worked alongside such Golden Age greats as Bernard Herrmann and Franz Waxman, and his scores again demonstrated his ability, honed on radio and live television, to write distinctive and dramatic music for the smallest of ensembles. Some of his Twilight Zone music also had an unexpected (and possibly unwanted) second life -- his music for "The Invaders" cropped up again much later in such films as Kingdom of the Spiders, and a distinctive phrase from "Nervous Man in a Four-Dollar Room" was used incessantly as the comical "3-D theme" on the sketch comedy series SCTV. His scores for Thriller, though less well known today, earned him his first Emmy nomination. Around the same time he wrote one of his most popular melodies, the romantic main title theme for TV's Dr. Kildare.

Alfred Newman was a fan of Goldsmith's Thriller work, and helped Goldsmith get hired for his first major studio film, Universal's modern day Western drama Lonely Are the Brave (whose premise was later unofficially reworked for 1979's The Electric Horseman). Newman's brother Lionel nicknamed Goldsmith "Gorgeous," and once placed a pool of water at Goldsmith's podium so he could admire himself. A famous story has it that none other than Bernard Herrmann visited the Lonely scoring sessions and warned Goldsmith that his music was too good for the film. The studio hired him again for John Huston's biopic of Freud, and Goldsmith's original, unnerving score (influenced by Bartok) earned him his first Oscar nomination, though some of its cues became more familiar to moviegoers nearly two decades later when director Ridley Scott tracked them into Alien.

Goldsmith wrote steadily for both the big and small screens during the early 60s, reuniting with TV director Franklin J. Schaffner for the feature The Stripper (the first of seven films they would do together) as well as writing the classic theme music for the TV spy smash The Man From U.N.C.L.E. He scored one more for Huston, giving The List of Adrian Messenger a delightful light mystery score with an infectious main theme, and his romantic thriller music for The Prize was much more appealing than the film itself, a disappointing Hitchcock imitation written by the great Ernest Lehman. One of his TV directors, Ralph Nelson, hired him for a modest comedy-drama with Sidney Poitier as a handyman who helps a group of nuns in a desert convent. Goldsmith based his score on the hymn "Amen," and the film, Lilies of the Field, proved to be a sleeper hit, winning Poitier the Best Actor Oscar, and was Goldsmith's first Best Picture nominee. He also made a rare venture into broad comedy with Take Her, She's Mine, and adaptation of Henry & Phoebe Ephron's play inspired by the misadventures of their daughter, future film director Nora Ephron.

Goldsmith got his first chance to work on an epic scale with Otto Preminger's underrated WWII drama In Harm's Way, about the first months of the war in the Pacific. Preminger had Goldsmith visit the set, and though the composer didn't find the experience musically helpful -- he always preferred to work from a cut of the film rather than a script -- he did end up with a silent cameo in the opening scene, as a pianist-bandleader, and his score was a rousing success, with a stirring main theme, lovely romantic music, and a powerful end title cue (which, unfortunately, is nearly drowned out by even more powerful sound effects).

One of Goldsmith's biggest stylistic influences was composer Alex North (upon hearing North's jazz-based score for A Streetcar Named Desire, Goldsmith felt that film music had been permanently changed), and when North was unavailable to score the documentary prologue to The Agony and the Ecstasy, he recommended Goldsmith for the job, and Goldsmith's classically tinged suite was worthy of the concert realm. Goldsmith scored another Sidney Poitier vehicle, the drama A Patch of Blue, and gave it a delicate score in the To Kill a Mockingbird vein which further demonstrated the range of his talents and earned him his second Oscar nomination.

North was originally signed to score Robert Wise's epic The Sand Pebbles, but when he pulled out of the project Goldsmith left Grand Prix to score the Wise film, and his moving score demonstrated his mastery of the Asian milieu and earned him a third Oscar nomination. The same year, he scored another but very different war epic, the airborne adventure The Blue Max, and though the film was not a great success, his stirring music proved to be one of his most popular compositions. With three Oscar nominations under his belt, Goldsmith devoted less time to TV scoring, though he did score the second season premiere of Irwin Allen's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, giving the series a brooding, Herrmannesque new theme, entirely different from Paul Sawtell's original main title music, but the Goldsmith theme was used only once.

His remarkable stylistic variety clearly demonstrated, he scored every genre of film during this period. His Western scores, including Rio Conchos, Hour of the Gun, and Bandolero!, owed little to the Copland/Americana sound favored by such film music greats as Elmer Bernstein and Jerome Moross and were unmistakably Goldsmith's own. He gave the Flint spy comedies a light, jazzy sound, while providing urban noir music for the groundbreaking Frank Sinatra thriller The Detective, from the Roderick Thorp novel (oddly enough, Thorp's sequel novel Nothing Lasts Forever was filmed twenty years later -- as Die Hard).

Though by 1968 Goldsmith was one of the most in-demand composers in Hollywood, it was his second feature for Franklin J. Schaffner that truly put him over the top. His staggeringly effective and original score for Planet of the Apes, utilizing serial techniques and unusual orchestrations to depict an alien world, was the most groundbreaking piece of film music of the decade, and was imitated for years to come.

He wrote another classic TV theme, Room 222, and had agreed to score Beneath the Planet of the Apes when he left the project in order to score a third film for Franklin J. Schaffner, the epic biography of Patton. Goldsmith's score was famously brief, only a half hour of music in a three hour film, but that 30 minutes encompassed a rich variety of themes and a stunningly original approach, deftly musicalizing a complex, true life figure and introducing the echoing trumpet sound which would become a much parodied motif. The film went on to win the Oscar for Best Picture, but Goldsmith inexplicably went home empty handed for the fifth time.

The popularity of song based scores like The Graduate and Shaft caused film producers to look to pop artists for potentially lucrative soundtracks, and away from traditional film composers. One composer joked that the job situation was so bad that he and his peers might as well join up and open a restaurant, and many of the top feature composers of the era, including Williams, Elmer Bernstein, and John Barry, began taking more television assignments. Goldsmith's TV movie scores for the early 70s displayed his inevitable craft and ingenuity, and one score, for the thriller Pursuit, was his first of many collaborations with bestselling author Michael Crichton. He even bravely followed in the footsteps of Aaron Copland by scoring a TV remake of Steinbeck's The Red Pony, and music won him his first Emmy.

While still working steadily in features, including a sixth Oscar nominated score for yet another Schaffner film, Papillon, Goldsmith scored an "ABC Movie For Television" -- essentially the first miniseries. Goldsmith's music for the epic QBVII was the equal of his feature work, encompassing memorable love themes, driving action, a rousing fanfare, and chilling music for the concentration camp sequences (musically much more harrowing than anything in Williams' Schindler's List score, which Goldsmith was a fan of), and won him yet another Emmy.

One of Goldsmith's greatest scores almost never happened. Phillip Lambro was hired to score Roman Polanski's film noir Chinatown, and Lambro's score, mixing period and Asian elements, was deemed unsuitable by the filmmakers and Goldsmith was hired to replace him. Goldsmith's score, written in only ten days, was (to use an oxymoron) an instant classic, balancing a bluesy love theme with modernist elements that beautifully reinforced the film's mood without relying on faux-30s stylings. Goldsmith was nominated but failed to win the Oscar for the seventh time and one of the other nominees reported that Goldsmith seemed genuinely discouraged by the loss. One can understand his frustration at losing the award for "Original Dramatic Score" to a score (The Godfather Part II) which was largely an adaptation of an earlier score which had had its own nomination rescinded after it was discovered that it itself was partially derived from an earlier score.

Despite the tremendous acclaim for the film and its music, Chinatown didn't seem to do as much for its composer as it deserved to. He worked as steadily as ever, earning an eighth nomination for his gorgeous and energizing score for the old-fashioned adventure The Wind and the Lion, but scored a surprising number of forgettable action films like Breakout and The Cassandra Crossing, though he never condescended to a film, no matter how schlocky. One story has it that it was a coin toss that got John Williams the job of scoring Jaws over Goldsmith -- one can only imagine an alternate universe of film music history if Goldsmith had received that assignment, which with the help of Williams' classic score became the highest grossing film of all time and launched Williams to the top of the profession.

Though the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences traditionally showed little interest in the horror genre, Goldsmith finally won the Best Score Oscar (presented by Ann-Margret) with his chilling, choral infused score for Richard Donner's The Omen. Goldsmith attended the ceremony with his second wife, Carol (who had written and sung the lyrics to "The Piper Dreams" on the Omen soundtrack), and the composer seemed genuinely moved as he gave his gracious and unusually brief speech:

I don't really know what to say. I must thank Richard Donner and Harvey Bernhard for making the film in the first place, Lionel Newman for conducting it so beautifully, Arthur Morton for beautiful orchestration...and the piper's dream did come true, dear Carol. Thank you.

His next Schaffner project was the Hemingway adaptation Islands in the Stream, and his score for the beautifully photographed family drama was one of Goldsmith's favorites of his own work. The success of The Omen seemed to have a greater impact on his assignments than Chinatown had, as all six of his films from 1978 had horror or sci-fi elements, but as always he gave them his all. Magic was a genuinely moving and disturbing psychological horror score, a worthy successor to Herrmann's classic Psycho, while Coma broke musical ground and was spotted with unusual care -- the first act of the film features no scoring whatsoever in order to reinforce the thriller's realistic build-up. Capricorn One boasted one of the most exciting main title themes ever written, and even a ludicrous film like The Swarm received a fresh and thrilling score. It was a clear indication of the industry's respect for Goldsmith that of his six 1978 scores, four of them were among the ten finalists for the Best Score nomination (with The Boys From Brazil actually receiving the nomination), and Damien Omen II was a finalist for Adaptation.

After a rousing, lighthearted adventure score for Michael Crichton's The Great Train Robbery, 1979 brought two of his most financially successful science-fiction projects, but while his scores for both were truly inspired, his experiences working on them were markedly different. His music for Alien combined a gorgeously romantic main theme with some of his most chilling, inventive and brilliantly orchestrated music. Unfortunately, a lack of communication between Goldsmith and director Ridley Scott led to the director drastically altering the score -- severely editing many cues, dropping others, and adding selections from the temp track such as Howard Hanson's "Romantic" symphony and Goldsmith's own score to Freud. The result was effective in the context of the film but an unnecessary musical hodgepodge. The soundtrack album presented the original music as the composer intended, and the film's original DVD release presented the complete original Goldsmith score on an alternate track, though the re-editing which followed Goldsmith's scoring causes some of the cues to synch up less precisely than Goldsmith must have intended.

Goldsmith spent six months working on Robert Wise's film Star Trek -- The Motion Picture, scoring right up to the release date (the superb "Klingon Battle" was allegedly recorded mere days before the film's opening). Wise was unsatisfied with Goldsmith's original approach to the main theme and the composer ultimately agreed, replacing the pretty but amorphous melody with the driving main theme that became one of his most famous and popular compositions. The score overall is one of his greatest achievements, a marvelously imaginative work evoking all the grandeur and awe that the filmmakers intended.

The composer took some time off from feature work to concentrate on his last big-scale TV project, scoring the first four hours of the intelligent historical miniseries Masada. His score was one of the finest compositions ever written for television and earned him a fourth Emmy. While he still churned out exciting scores for more forgettable action movies (CaboBlanco, The Salamander), he finished off the Omen trilogy with his stunning music for The Final Conflict, giving the adult Antichrist a powerful theme and treating the stylish but unconvincing horror film like a genuine religious epic.

1982 was an especially fruitful year for Goldsmith, his output including the Oscar nominated Poltergeist (his first collaboration with producer Steven Spielberg), a beautiful score for the animated The Secret of NIMH, and First Blood, the film that began his relationship with producers Mario Kassar and Andrew Vanja and made him the official composer for Sylvester Stallone's Rambo, one of the top action heroes of 1980s cinema. Soon after he scored Psycho II, taking the bold step of moving away from Herrmann's classic score and musically emphasizing the essential innocence of Norman Bates over his insanity.

Goldsmith was an inspired choice to score Spielberg's production Twilight Zone: The Movie, and he gave the anthology film four separate yet equally inspired mini-scores, ranging from the percussive "Time Out" (an homage to his small ensemble work for the original TV series) to the lush orchestral playfulness of "Kick the Can." His ethnically flavored score for the South America-set Under Fire earned him a fourteenth Oscar nomination and received a rave from no less a critic than Pauline Kael (normally no fan of either film music or Goldsmith) who called it "one of the best movie scores I've ever heard." Twilight Zone led to a steady collaboration with director Joe Dante, for whom Goldsmith wrote some of his most eccentric and inventive music, including the smash hit Gremlins (Goldsmith had cameos in both Gremlins and its sequel), and he even gave a film as dire as 'The Burbs his all.

Having apparently seen the error of his Alien ways, Ridley Scott hired Goldsmith to score his lavish fairy tale Legend, with the composer writing pieces before filming began for sequences to be choreographed to. Goldsmith's magical score was a worthy companion piece to his Secret of NIMH music, but the studio got cold feet over the expensive film's boxoffice prospects, and Scott hired Tangerine Dream to write a synth score that would hypothetically hold greater appeal for youthful audiences. The film managed to be a boxoffice disaster despite the recutting and rescoring, and Goldsmith was understandably bitter. A prestigious assignment, Oliver Stone's Wall Street, fell through when Goldsmith and Stone couldn't see eye to eye on the music and Goldsmith left the project before the scoring sessions began.

While he had been using electronics in his music for many years, Goldsmith took a greater interest in synthesizers in the mid-eighties, making them an important component of his orchestra and even writing a few all-synth scores like Runaway and Criminal Law. Goldsmith's Star Trek theme received a whole new life as the theme for the popular, acclaimed TV series Star Trek: The Next Generation, and his score for William Shatner's often laughable directorial debut, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, was a worthy successor to his music for the Robert Wise original.

Even Goldsmith seemed to be dissatisfied with all the sub-par films he was scoring during the late 80s -- King Solomon's Mines, Rent-a-Cop, Leviathan -- and his new agent, film music aficionado Richard Kraft, encouraged him to seek out projects that would inspire him. After writing a rousing sci-fi action score for the smash hit Total Recall, his first project for director Paul Verhoeven (who quickly became one of his favorite collaborators), he scored a personally chosen project, Fred Schepisi's film of John LeCarre's romantic spy novel The Russia House, and Goldsmith's relaxed, jazzy score (with solos performed by Branford Marsalis) was a major creative breakthrough for the composer and was the start of an inspiring partnership with Schepisi, which included the wry, tango-based score for Six Degrees of Separation.

Basic Instinct was his second film for Verhoeven, and his elegant music earned him his sixteenth Oscar nomination. Some composers feel that it was Goldsmith's sleek, sinuous score that allowed the audience to believe that Sharon Stone's femme fatale was as brilliant as she was supposed to be, though I know at least one production designer who felt it was Terence Marsh's sets that did the trick (I suspect that writer Joe Eszterhas and Stone herself would each prefer to take the credit). Goldsmith did several suspense thrillers during the early nineties and made the effort to find a fresh musical approach for each one, such as his simple, haunting choral theme for Malice.

The nineties were a tricky time for film composers. Many of the top composers of Goldsmith's generation, including Elmer Bernstein, John Barry and Maurice Jarre, found their scores being rejected at a disturbing rate, and Goldsmith was unfortunately no exception. Goldsmith's casualties of the period include the noir The Public Eye, the urban boxing drama Gladiator, and the faux-Tarantino comedy-thriller 2 Days in the Valley, whose multiple storylines Goldsmith scored with a variety of motifs and styles, only to see his score thrown out completely. Goldsmith himself wrote few replacement scores during this period -- Air Force One (replacing Randy Newman) proved to be one of his biggest boxoffice hits, The 13th Warrior (replacing Graeme Revell) was his sixth Michael Crichton project, while The River Wild (replacing Maurice Jarre) began his relationship with director Curtis Hanson, leading to L.A. Confidential, whose harsh, sparse score earned Goldsmith a 17th nomination, and the Best Picture nominated film was the most critically acclaimed Goldsmith project since Chinatown.

Constantly changing post-production schedules in the 90s led to composers dropping out of projects, and among the scores Goldsmith almost wrote were Tombstone, Baby's Day Out, Lost in Space (all ultimately scored by Bruce Broughton), Judge Dredd (Alan Silvestri, though Goldsmith was involved long enough to write a thrilling, fast-paced theme for the film's trailer), Swing Kids (James Horner) and The Jungle Book (Basil Poledouris). Disappointingly, he dropped out of two projects which would have reunited him with Seconds director John Frankenheimer -- Ronin and Reindeer Games (which proved to be the director's final two features). Goldsmith himself picked up assignments when other composers dropped out -- James Newton Howard was originally announced to score Congo, The Ghost and the Darkness and Chain Reaction, Maurice Jarre was first signed to First Knight, while Rachel Portman's pregnancy kept her from scoring Mulan. That film, Goldsmith's first animated feature since The Secret of NIMH, earned the composer his 18th Oscar nomination. Goldsmith also returned to the Star Trek series in full force, scoring the final (so far) three films in the series as well as writing the main title theme for the TV series Star Trek: Voyager, which won Goldsmith his fifth Emmy and beat out the pop song theme to Friends for the award.

Despite the hazards of maintaining a viable career as a Hollywood composer, Goldsmith was garnering well deserved acclaim for his decades of achievements. Berklee College of Music gave him an honorary doctorate, the Society For the Preservation of Film Music gave him a lifetime achievement award (in a ceremony featuring Henry Mancini as well as directors Dante and Verhoeven), Variety gave him their first "American Music Legend Award," and in 1995 composer Fred Karlin directed an exhaustive documentary on Goldsmith's life and career. A DVD of Legend was even released which restored Goldsmith's rejected score. Goldsmith himself paid homage to one of his greatest inspirations, composer Alex North, conducting a series of rerecordings of North scores for Varese Sarabande, including the groundbreaking A Streetcar Named Desire and the rejected score for 2001. He also wrote some shorter original pieces, including a new Universal Studios logo theme, the motion picture Academy's official "Fanfare For Oscar," the music for the "Soarin'" ride at Disney's California Adventure, and a concert piece entitled "Fireworks: A Celebration of Los Angeles." He also seemed to become more comfortable with his presence in the public eye, conducting concerts of his own music, teaching composition classes at U.S.C., and contributing commentary tracks to the DVDs of Planet of the Apes and Hollow Man.

The Mummy, directed by Goldsmith fan Stephen Sommers, was a huge hit and proved that even at the age of seventy, the composer could write music as exciting and inventive as ever. He scored one more film for Paul Verhoeven, the sci-fi thriller Hollow Man, and Variety compared his score for the hit Tom Clancy thriller The Sum of All Fears (featuring an inspired choral main title) to his classic scores of the sixties.

His final two projects proved to be less satisfying experiences for the composer. He wrote a rousing adventure score for Timeline, with pleasing echoes of his classic The Wind and the Lion, and the film was his seventh Michael Crichton project as well as his first film for director Richard Donner since their Oscar winner The Omen, but endless re-editing necessitated more rescoring than Goldsmith was willing to do, and the filmmakers replaced his score with a new one by rising composer Brian Tyler. Goldsmith's final film was yet another Joe Dante project, the underrated Looney Tunes: Back in Action, and Goldsmith's music was as lively and varied as ever but health problems kept him from finishing the score and John Debney scored the final scenes.

Jerrald King Goldsmith died in his sleep at his home in Beverly Hills on July 21st, 2004 after a long illness. He is survived by his wife Carol; four children from his first marriage: Joel (a composer in his own right), Carrie, Jennifer, and Ellen (who sang on the soundtrack to Wild Rovers); a son, Aaron, from his second marriage; six grandchildren and a great-grandchild. A public memorial service was held on Friday, July 23rd at Hillside Memorial Park in Los Angeles. Donations in his honor may be made to the Jerry Goldsmith Scholarship Fund for Film Music Composition, UCLA School of the Arts, Dean's Office, Box 951427, Los Angeles, CA 90095, or to the Jerry Goldsmith Memorial Fund for Cancer Research, Tower Cancer Research Foundation, 9090 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA 90212.

A principal source of research for this article was the late Fred Karlin's 1995 documentary Film Music Masters: Jerry Goldsmith, and especially its excellent companion book. The documentary includes interviews with directors such as Schaffner, Verhoeven and Donner, and musical collaborators like orchestrator Arthur Morton and percussionist Emil Richards; clips from his major films; footage of the River Wild scoring sessions; Goldsmith's Oscar acceptance speech; and even color home movies of a teenage Goldsmith with his teacher Jakob Gimpel. It is a must-have for any Goldsmith devotee, and is well worth the effort to track down.

All titles are feature film scores unless otherwise noted. The list does not include his compositions for radio, and many TV projects may have been inadvertently omitted as well. I have attempted to list his projects in the order they were composed, not when they were released (Warlock, for example, spent two years on the shelf), but the chronology in this list is only approximate at best.

CLIMAX! (TV episode scores)
GUNSMOKE (TV episode scores)
PERRY MASON (2 TV episode scores)
STUDIO ONE (TV episode scores)
BLACK PATCH
WAGON TRAIN (TV episode scores)
HAVE GUN -- WILL TRAVEL (TV episode scores)
PLAYHOUSE 90 (TV episode scores)
BLACK SADDLE (TV episode scores)
THE LINE-UP (TV series theme)
PECK'S BAD GIRL (TV episode scores)
GENERAL ELECTRIC THEATRE (TV episode scores)
CITY OF FEAR
FACE OF A FUGITIVE
STUDS LONIGAN
Score CD from Varse Sarabande CD Club
THE TWILIGHT ZONE (7 TV episode scores)
Music from the episodes "Back There," "The Big Tall Wish," "Dust," "The Invaders," and "Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room" featured on the Silva 4-disc set Twilight Zone: The 40th Anniversary Collection
THE EXPENDABLES (TV pilot score)
THRILLER (13 TV episode scores)
Episodes include "God Grant That She Lye Stille," "Hay-Fork and Bill-Hook," "Mr. George," "The Terror in Teakwood," "What Beckoning Ghost?" and "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper"; Emmy nominee for Achievement in Music, nomination shared with Pete Rugolo
THE GENERAL WITH THE COCKEYED ID (Short film)
RAWHIDE (1 TV episode score)
CAIN'S HUNDRED (TV series theme and episode scores)
DR. KILDARE (TV series theme and episode scores)
Theme featured on the Silva CD Goldsmith Conducts Goldsmith
THE PEOPLE NEXT DOOR (TV drama)
KRAFT MYSTERY THEATRE (TV episode scores)
CATCH IT ON THE WING (TV pilot score)
THE BEST YEARS (TV pilot score)
LONELY ARE THE BRAVE
THE SPIRAL ROAD
FREUD
Score LP on Citadel; Oscar nominee Music Score - Substantially Original
THE STRIPPER
Score CD on Film Score Monthly
THE LIST OF ADRIAN MESSENGER
A GATHERING OF EAGLES
THE PRIZE
Score CD on Film Score Monthly
THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. (TV series theme and 3 episode scores)
Music from the episodes "The Vulcan Affair," "The Deadly Games Affair" and "The King of Knaves Affair" featured on the Film Score Monthly CDs The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. Volume 2; Emmy nominee Individual Achievement in Music - Composition for Man From U.N.C.L.E. theme; Grammy nominee Original Score - Motion Picture or TV Show, nomination shared with Lalo Schifrin, Morton Stevens, Walter Scharf
DESTRY (TV episode score)
THE LONER (TV series theme and 2 episode scores)
Episode scores "An Echo of Bugles" and "One of the Wounded" on Film Score Monthly, paired with Stagecoach
LILIES OF THE FIELD
Score CD on Pendulum; Oscar finalist Music Score - Substantially Original
TAKE HER, SHE'S MINE
SHOCK TREATMENT
19:58 on the Varese CD Club 6-disc set Jerry Goldsmith at 20th Century Fox
SEVEN DAYS IN MAY
Golden Globe nominee Original Score
FATE IS THE HUNTER
6:44 on the Varese CD Club 6-disc set Jerry Goldsmith at 20th Century Fox
BEN CASEY (1 TV episode score)
RIO CONCHOS
Score CD on Film Score Monthly; Oscar finalist Music Score - Substantially Original
IN HARM'S WAY
Score CD on SLC (import)
THE SATAN BUG
MORITURI
Score CD on Film Score Monthly
VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA (1 TV episode score)
Episode score "Jonah and the Whale" featured on the GNP/Crescendo CD Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY (score to prologue only)
Re-recording available on the Intrada CD Rio Conchos; original tracks released on the Varese CD Club 6-disc set Jerry Goldsmith at 20th Century Fox
A PATCH OF BLUE
Score CD on Intrada; Oscar nominee Music Score - Substantially Original
VON RYAN'S EXPRESS
20:27 on the Varese CD Club 6-disc set Jerry Goldsmith at 20th Century Fox
OUR MAN FLINT
Score CD on Varese Sarabande, paired with In Like Flint
THE TROUBLE WITH ANGELS
Score CD on Mainstream, paired with Stagecoach
THE BLUE MAX
Score CD on Sony Legacy
THE SAND PEBBLES
Score CD from Varese Sarabande CD Club; Oscar nominee Original Music Score; Golden Globe nominee Original Score
SECONDS
8:00 rerecorded for the Edel CD set Best of Science Fiction
STAGECOACH
Score CD on Film Score Monthly
JERICHO (TV series theme and 1 episode score)
THE LEGEND OF JESSE JAMES (1 TV episode score)
THE FLIM-FLAM MAN
Score CD on Film Score Monthly; Oscar finalist Original Music Score
HOUR OF THE GUN
Score CD on Intrada
WARNING SHOT
The Liberty LP Si Zentner Plays Music From the Original Motion Picture Score of "Warning Shot" features jazz rearrangements of six cues from Goldsmith's score
IN LIKE FLINT
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
PLANET OF THE APES
Score CD on Varese Sarabande; Oscar nominee Original Score - For a Motion Picture [Not a Musical]
SEBASTIAN
Score LP on Dot
BANDOLERO!
Expanded score CD due Sept. 2004 from Intrada
THE DETECTIVE
18:07 on the Varese CD Club 6-disc set Jerry Goldsmith at 20th Century Fox
NICK QUARRY (TV pilot presentation score)
10:27 on the Film Score Monthly CD The Stripper
THE ILLUSTRATED MAN
Score CD on Film Score Monthly
100 RIFLES
Score CD on Film Score Monthly
CHRISTUS APOLLO (concert piece)
Featured on the Telarc CD Christus Apollo
THE CHAIRMAN
Score CD on Silva, paired with Ransom; the Varese CD Club 6-disc set Jerry Goldsmith at 20th Century Fox features a 13:25 suite from the score which includes one short cue not featured on the Silva CD
JUSTINE
Score CD from Varese Sarabande CD Club
ROOM 222 (TV series theme and 2 episode scores)
Score CD on Film Score Monthly, featuring episode scores "Pilot" and "Flu," paired with Ace Eli and Rodger of the Skies
PATTON
Score CD on Film Score Monthly; Oscar nominee Original Score
THE BALLAD OF CABLE HOGUE
Score CD from Varese Sarabande CD Club
TORA! TORA! TORA!
Score CD on Film Score Monthly
RIO LOBO
Score CD on Prometheus
THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE BELL (TV movie score)
THE TRAVELING EXECTIONER
Score CD on Film Score Monthly
A STEP OUT OF LINE (TV movie score)
THE HOMECOMING--A CHRISTMAS STORY (TV movie score)
ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES
16:27 on the Varese CD Planet of the Apes; Oscar finalist Original Dramatic Score
THE LAST RUN
Score CD on Chapter III
THE CABLE CAR MURDER (TV movie score)
THE MEPHISTO WALTZ
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
DO NOT FOLD, SPINDLE, OR MUTILATE (TV movie score)
WILD ROVERS
Score CD on Film Score Monthly
CRAWLSPACE (TV movie score)
MUSIC FOR ORCHESTRA (concert piece)
Featured on the Telarc CD Christus Apollo
THE OTHER
22:02 on the Varese Sarabande CD The Mephisto Waltz/The Other; Oscar finalist Original Dramatic Score
THE MAN
LIGHTS OUT (TV episode score)
ANNA AND THE KING (TV series theme and episode scores)
16:07 on the Varese CD Club 6-disc set Jerry Goldsmith at 20th Century Fox
THE WALTONS (TV series theme and 6 episode scores)
Theme featured on the Silva CD Goldsmith Conducts Goldsmith
PURSUIT (TV movie score)
ACE ELI AND RODGER OF THE SKIES
Score CD on Film Score Monthly
SHAMUS
BARNABY JONES (TV series theme and episode scores)
Theme featured on the Silva CD Goldsmith Conducts Goldsmith
THE RED PONY (TV movie score)
Emmy winner Music Composition For a Special Program
POLICE STORY (TV series theme and pilot score)
Score CD on Prometheus
ONE LITTLE INDIAN
THE DON IS DEAD
THE GOING UP OF DAVID LEV (TV movie score)
PAPILLON
Expanded Score CD on Universal France; Oscar nominee Original Dramatic Score
HAWKINS ON MURDER (TV series theme and pilot score)
Score CD on Film Score Monthly
INDICT AND CONVICT (TV movie score)
A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN (TV movie score)
14:15 on the Varese CD Club 6-disc set Jerry Goldsmith at 20th Century Fox
CHINATOWN
Score CD on Varese Sarabande; Oscar nominee Original Dramatic Score; BAFTA nominee Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music; Golden Globe nominee Original Score
S*P*Y*S
18:48 on the Varese CD Club 6-disc set Jerry Goldsmith at 20th Century Fox
HIGH VELOCITY
Score CD on Prometheus
QB VII (TV miniseries score)
Score CD on Intrada; Emmy winner Music Composition: Special (Dramatic Underscore); Grammy nominee Original Score - Motion Picture or a Television Special
WINTER KILL (TV movie score)
Score CD on Film Score Monthly, paired with Hawkins on Murder
TAKE A HARD RIDE
Score CD on Film Score Monthly
A GIRL NAMED SOONER (TV movie score)
Score CD on Film Score Monthly, paired with The Flim-Flam Man
RANSOM! (aka THE TERRORISTS)
Score LP on Dart; 7 cues featured on the Silva CD Ransom/The Chairman
BREAKOUT
Score CD on Prometheus
BABE (TV movie score)
Score CD on Film Score Monthly, paired with Hawkins on Murder; Emmy winner Music Composition For a Special (Dramatic Underscore)
THE REINCARNATION OF PETER PROUD
THE WIND AND THE LION
Score CD on Intrada; Oscar nominee Original Score; Grammy nominee Original Score - Motion Picture or a Television Special; BAFTA nominee Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music;
MEDICAL STORY (TV series theme)
Theme on Prometheus CD Police Story
ARCHER (TV series theme and 7 episode scores)
BREAKHEART PASS
LOGAN'S RUN
Expanded score CD on Film Score Monthly; Oscar finalist Original Score
THE OMEN
Expanded score CD on Varese Sarabande; Oscar winner Original Score, Oscar nominee Original Song for "Ave Satani"; Grammy nominee Original Score - Motion Picture or a Television Special
TWILIGHT'S LAST GLEAMING
Score CD on Silva
ISLANDS IN THE STREAM
Score CD on Intrada; Oscar finalist Original Score
THE CASSANDRA CROSSING
Score CD on RCA Italy
MACARTHUR
Score CD on Varese Sarabande; Oscar finalist Original Score
COMA
Score CD on Chapter III, paired with Logan's Run; Oscar finalist Original Score
DAMNATION ALLEY
19:06 on the Varese CD Club 6-disc set Jerry Goldsmith at 20th Century Fox
CONTRACT ON CHERRY STREET (TV movie score)
Score CD on Prometheus
SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR (TV drama score)
CAPRICORN ONE
Score CD on GNP/Crescendo, paired with Outland; Oscar finalist Original Score
THE SWARM
Score CD on Prometheus
DAMIEN OMEN II
Expanded score CD on Varese Sarabande; Oscar finalist Original Song Score and its Adaptation or Adaptation Score
THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL
Score CD on Masters Film Music; Oscar nominee Original Score; Saturn Award nominee Best Music
THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY
Score CD on Memoir, paired with Wild Rovers; Oscar finalist Original Score
MAGIC
Score CD from Varese Sarabande CD Club; Oscar finalist Original Score; Saturn Award nominee Best Music
ALIEN
Score CD on Silva; 14:22 additional music on the Varese CD Club 6-disc set Jerry Goldsmith at 20th Century Fox; Grammy nominee Original Score - Motion Picture or a Television Special; BAFTA nominee Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music; Golden Globe nominee Original Score
PLAYERS
STAR TREK--THE MOTION PICTURE
Expanded score CD on Columbia Legacy; Oscar nominee Original Score; Golden Globe nominee Original Score; Saturn Award nominee Best Music
THE FINAL CONFLICT
Expanded score CD on Varese Sarabande
CABOBLANCO
Score CD on Prometheus
THE SALAMANDER
MASADA, Parts 1 & 2 (TV miniseries score)
Score CD on Varese Sarabande; Emmy winner Music Composition - Limited Series or Special (Dramatic Underscore) for Part 2; Grammy nominee Instrumental Composition for "The Slaves"; Grammy nominee Instrumental Arrangement for "The Slaves"
INCHON
Score CD on Intrada
OUTLAND
Score CD on GNP/Crescendo; Saturn Award nominee Best Music
NIGHT CROSSING
Expanded score CD on Intrada
RAGGEDY MAN
Score CD from Varese Sarabande CD Club
THE CHALLENGE
Score CD on Prometheus
POLTERGEIST
Score CD on Rhino; Oscar nominee Original Score; Saturn Award nominee Best Music
THE SECRET OF NIMH
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
FIRST BLOOD
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
PSYCHO II
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
DUSTY (TV pilot score)
TWILIGHT ZONE: THE MOVIE
Score CD on Warner Bros.(import)
UNDER FIRE
Score CD on Warner Bros.(import); Oscar nominee Original Score; Golden Globe nominee Original Score
THE LONELY GUY
Soundtrack "Mini-LP" on MCA includes 2 Goldsmith score cues and 1 Goldsmith song
GREMLINS
Song and Score CD on Geffen; Saturn Award winner Best Music
SUPERGIRL
Expanded score CD on Silva
BABY: SECRET OF THE LOST LEGEND
22:05 on the limited edition SPFM CD Tribute to Jerry Goldsmith
RUNAWAY
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
LEGEND (score rejected and restored for DVD)
Score CD on Silva
RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II
Expanded score CD on Silva
EXPLORERS
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
AMAZING STORIES (1 TV episode score)
Episode "Boo!," directed by Joe Dante
KING SOLOMON'S MINES
Score CD on Intrada
LINK
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
POLTERGEIST II: THE OTHER SIDE
Expanded score CD on Varese Sarabande
HOOSIERS
Score CD on That's Entertainment Records as Best Shot; Oscar nominee Original Score
LIONHEART
Score CD on Varese Sarabande; originally released by Varese as two separate CDs, volume 1 & 2, with additional music
EXTREME PREJUDICE
Score CD on Intrada
INNERSPACE
Score and Song CD on Geffen
RENT-A-COP
Score CD on Intrada
RAMBO III
Expanded score CD on Intrada
CRIMINAL LAW
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
ALIEN NATION (rejected score)
WARLOCK
Score CD on Intrada
THE 'BURBS
Score CD from Varese Sarabande CD Club
LEVIATHAN
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER
Score CD on Epic
H.E.L.P. (TV series theme)
TOTAL RECALL
Expanded score CD on Varese Sarabande
GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
THE RUSSIA HOUSE
Score CD on MCA
NOT WITHOUT MY DAUGHTER
Score CD on Intrada
SLEEPING WITH THE ENEMY
Score CD on Columbia
BROTHERHOOD OF THE GUN (TV movie theme)
LOVE FIELD
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
MOM AND DAD SAVE THE WORLD
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
MEDICINE MAN
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
BASIC INSTINCT
Expanded score CD on Prometheus; Oscar nominee Original Score; Golden Globe nominee Original Score
GLADIATOR (rejected score)
MR. BASEBALL
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
THE PUBLIC EYE (rejected score)
FOREVER YOUNG
Score CD on Big Screen
MATINEE
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
THE VANISHING
20:45 on the Varese CD Club 6-disc set Jerry Goldsmith at 20th Century Fox
DENNIS THE MENACE
Score CD on Big Screen
MALICE
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
RUDY
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION
Score CD on Elektra
ANGIE
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
BAD GIRLS
Score CD on Fox
THE SHADOW
Score CD on Arista
THE RIVER WILD
Score CD on RCA
I.Q.
JUDGE DREDD (trailer theme)
Theme featured on the Varese CD Hollywood '95 and the Sonic Images CD Coming Soon: The John Beal Trailer Project
STAR TREK: VOYAGER (TV series theme)
Featured on the GNP/Crescendo CD Star Trek: Voyager; Emmy winner for Outstanding Individual Achievement In Main Title Theme Music
CONGO
Score CD on Epic
FIRST KNIGHT
Score CD on Epic
POWDER
Score CD on Hollywood
CITY HALL
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
2 DAYS IN THE VALLEY (rejected score)
EXECUTIVE DECISION
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
CHAIN REACTION
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
THE GHOST AND THE DARKNESS
Score CD on Hollywood
STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT
Score CD on GNP/Crescendo; additional music by Joel Goldsmith
FIERCE CREATURES
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
L.A. CONFIDENTIAL
Score CD on Varese Sarabande; the song CD on New Regency/Restless features a brief Goldsmith cue, "Badge of Honor," not included on the Varese CD; Oscar nominee Original Dramatic Score; BAFTA nominee Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music; Golden Globe nominee Original Score
THE EDGE
Score CD on RCA
AIR FORCE ONE
Score CD on Varese Sarabande; additional music by Joel McNeely
UNIVERSAL PICTURES THEME (Studio logo music)
DEEP RISING
Score CD on Hollywood
FANFARE FOR OSCAR (Academy Awards theme)
U.S. MARSHALS
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
MULAN
Score & Song CD on Disney; Complete score & song CD released as a limited edition, "For Your Consideration" Oscar promo; Oscar nominee Original Musical or Comedy Score; Golden Globe nominee Original Score
SMALL SOLDIERS
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
THE 13TH WARRIOR
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
STAR TREK: INSURRECTION
Score CD on GNP/Crescedo
THE MUMMY
Score CD on Decca; Saturn Award nominee Best Music
THE HAUNTING
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
FIREWORKS: A CELEBRATION OF LOS ANGELES (concert piece)
Featured on the Telarc CD Christus Apollo
HOLLOW MAN
Score CD on Varese Sarabande; Saturn Award nominee Best Music
ALONG CAME A SPIDER
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
SOARIN' OVER CALIFORNIA (theme park ride music)
Included on the Walt Disney Records CD Music From Disney's California Adventure
THE LAST CASTLE
Score CD on Decca
THE SUM OF ALL FEARS
Score CD on Elektra
STAR TREK: NEMESIS
Score CD on Varese Sarabande
TIMELINE (rejected score)
Score CD due this year from Varese Sarabande
LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION
Score CD on Varese Sarabande; Additional music by John Debney; Saturn Award nominee Best Music

I don't remember when I first discovered who Jerry Goldsmith was. The first Goldsmith movie I saw was probably Planet of the Apes, though at the age of 8 or 9 my most vivid memories of the film were the shot of the mummified female astronaut (which freaked me out, squeamish child as I was), and of trying to get to sleep that night as I imagined menacing apes lurking in the dark corners of my bedroom. The first Goldsmith music I was consciously aware of (though I didn't yet know his name) was almost certainly his themes to The Waltons and Room 222. His Room 222 theme is a piece of music that vividly evokes my childhood, especially growing up in Marin County.

Though I became a film music fan in my mid-teens, it took a while for me to become a big Goldsmith fan. Apart from my brother's James Bond soundtracks, the first scores I ever really noticed in the context of their movies were Bernard Herrmann's The Day the Earth Stood Still and John Morris' Young Frankenstein. During the mid-70s, my favorite composers tended to reflect the films I was most partial to -- James Bond (John Barry), Harryhausen & Hitchcock movies (Bernard Herrmann and Miklos Rozsa) and comedies and mysteries (Henry Mancini, John Morris, John Addison, Richard Rodney Bennett -- I became a John Williams fan more because of Family Plot than Jaws or Star Wars).

The first Goldsmith film I saw in its original theatrical run was Logan's Run, but I didn't truly appreciate the greatness of the score, its wonderful instrumental and thematic progression, until FSM released the complete chronological score CD (the expensive cheesiness of the film, which seemed uncool even when I was 14, must have been a factor). I saw the film again soon after when it gained The Wind and the Lion as a second feature, and that rousing score with its glorious main theme was impossible to ignore, especially when I came across the soundtrack album. That year, 1976, was the year I began my Hitchcock obsession, seeing something like 30 of his 50+ films in the course of a year. San Francisco's revival houses regularly played Hitchcock double features, so I was able to see everything from Rebecca to Frenzy on the big screen, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art had a retrospective of his British films so I caught such rarities as The Lodger and The Ring as well. Naturally, Bernard Herrmann rapidly became my favorite composer; I had already fallen in love with his Harryhausen scores, especially The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and the combination of his recent demise and the blessed availability of rerecorded suites from his scores (thanks to Charles Gerhardt and Herrmann himself) only heightened the obsession -- the fact that he's arguably the greatest film composer of all time didn't hurt.

It was in 1977 that I started going to movies regularly (not yet obsessively), and having discovered the greatness of Goldsmith's Planet of the Apes score on LP (as well as in its TV reruns), I began to seek out his new films like Islands in the Stream and MacArthur. Damnation Alley was the kind of schlocky sci-fi movie I would have seen on opening weekend even if had been scored by a lemur with a Casio, but I still can't get over how much invention and care Goldsmith put in to scoring such a laughable film ("This town is infested with killer cockroaches! I repeat, killer cockroaches!").

From that point on, I would see every new Goldsmith film in the theater, except for the few whose limited releases made that impossible (CaboBlanco, The Salamander, The Challenge, Lionheart), and these few I inevitably caught up with on TV or video. 1978's six Goldsmith scores (and five Goldsmith albums -- the marvelous Magic soundtrack would take 25 years to become available) only helped cement my obsession -- I mean, the man was able to write fresh and thrilling music for The Swarm. THE SWARM!!! ("Oh my God! Bees, bees, millions of bees!")

1979 provided even greater treats. Much as I revere Goldsmith, comedy was not one of his strong suits, but The Great Train Robbery managed to combine a lighthearted tone with a wonderful adventure melody. Alien was one of the pivotal films of that period of my life -- I saw it something like six times in its first six months of release -- and Goldsmith's original score is still one of my all-time pieces of film music, with inventive orchestrations that brilliantly evoke the alien and a truly haunting main theme. 1978 to 1983 were for me the golden years of Goldsmith's career, and the range he displayed, from the thunderous opening of Capricorn One to the exquisite delicacy of the "Hypersleep" music from Alien, showed me that he could pretty much do anything. I must shamefully admit, though, that I was not a skilled enough listener to notice how thoroughly butchered Goldsmith's Alien score had been, until I bought the Freud soundtrack and noticed how awfully familiar some of those cues were.

Long before my obsession with film music began I was a full-on Trekkie, and the news that Robert Wise would direct a Star Trek film, with a Jerry Goldsmith score no less, made it the most eagerly anticipated film of my entire moviegoing life. The genius of Goldsmith's score is that it could almost have been written from a Trekkie's perspective. The film may be flat and awkward, but in Goldsmith's score the love story is achingly romantic, the Enterprise is the most heroic ship in the universe, the endless, slowly paced special effects scenes are full of wonder and mystery, and the lengthy sequence of Captain Kirk viewing his restored Enterprise for the first time is scored with a rapture that reflects a Trekkie's joy at seeing the ship and its crew finally reunited on the big screen.

1980 was painfully devoid of new Goldsmith features, but 1981 brought such goodies as The Final Conflict, with its superb main theme and its dazzlingly scored foxhunt, one of the greatest cues in the Goldsmith canon, and the dark and exciting Outland. It was over a weekend in 1982, when I saw Inchon for the first time and The Secret of NIMH for the second time, that I made the painful realization (only a true geek could understand how painful this realization was) that Herrmann was no longer my favorite composer -- Goldsmith was. I felt disloyal to my former musical God, but brilliant as Herrmann was, Goldsmith had written more scores I loved -- and he was still writing them. 1982 alone had SIX new scores, with such gems as the lovely Secret of NIMH and the surging main title for Night Crossing.

1983's Twilight Zone: the Movie was for me, if not Goldsmith's greatest score than the peak of his greatness -- four wonderful mini-scores, each with its own distinct sound and themes. The rest of the eighties contained solid work but nothing I liked quite as much. However, as a Goldsmith obsessive I had a new goal. My short-lived screenwriting career began in the mid-80s, and it was my dream to have Goldsmith score one of my films (an unmade adaptation of the international thriller Grandmaster was an especially Goldsmith-suitable project). When my first screenwriting job actually got filmed, I even wrote out a spotting sheet (for my own pleasure, of course -- I had no expectation that the producer, director or composers would allow me any input into the spotting, nice as they all were). Two writer friends of mine did end up with a Goldsmith score, but they weren't film music fans and Mom and Dad Save the World is not the proudest item on their resumes, despite Goldsmith's charming music. While writing my last big studio project, a sci-fi action movie (okay, it was Demolition Man, but trust me, my draft was no better than the one they eventually shot, just shorter yet paradoxically more expensive), I listened exclusively to my Goldsmith CD collection which in 1992 was only a fraction of what it was now.

In 1993 I got a rare chance to see the man himself when I attended the SPFM's Goldsmith tribute at the Hollywood Roosevelt. Okay, I admit it, I really went so I could get the tribute CD -- not that I wouldn't have wanted to pay tribute to Goldsmith otherwise, it's just that renting a tuxedo and going to a formal dinner to honor a man I'd never met wasn't the kind of activity that I would normally partake of. The evening turned out to be wonderful (as of the course the CD was), and before the event started one of my all-time favorite directors, Paul Verhoeven, came up to my friend Fred Dekker and I and asked "Is this where the Jerry thing is?" (Okay, it's not a great story, but it was Paul Verhoeven! How cool is that!)

I didn't meet Goldsmith that night -- I'm not the kind to pester a celebrity, and recently when I worked at an event honoring another lifelong hero, Ray Harryhausen, I didn't make my presence or my reverence known either -- nor on any other occasion, but I did get to see him a few other times, including a visit he paid to Basil Poledouris on the RoboCop 3 scoring stage and a Hollywood Bowl concert where he conducted his then-new "Fireworks" along with his film music.

And now he's gone. Beyond the love I felt for his music, one of the things I loved most about Goldsmith was the way his approach to scoring was always changing, his talent was always developing. Someone in FSM once wrote that if Goldsmith scored Logan's Run in the 90s it would be completely different, but if Williams scored Jaws twenty years later it'd probably sound pretty much the same. Even in his last scores, Goldsmith's work stayed fresh and inventive (and he scored one of my favorite films of the 1990s, the hugely underrated The Edge). Though Nemesis was a disappointing finale to his Star Trek scores (I suspect due to the influence of director Stuart Baird, whose other Goldsmith scores were similarly low-key and monothematic), Hollow Man, Sum of All Fears and Timeline were outstanding works, and the energy and invention of Looney Tunes would have been impressive for a composer a third his age.

Some fans like to mock collectors who want to own every single note of a composer's music, comparing it to collecting bottlecaps, but as someone who would even buy another copy of Mr. Baseball if they added an extra cue, I feel there is nothing wrong with wanting to own every bit of a beloved talent's output. Even if not every score by Goldsmith was a masterwork -- neither romance nor comedy were his strong suits (he generally seemed more comfortable with dark material than light), though he did write some marvelous love themes (Sand Pebbles, Chinatown, Wind and the Lion, Ilia's theme, to name a few) and his scores for Joe Dante allowed him to demonstrate an appealingly goofy side -- every score he wrote has musical or purely aesthetic value. I consider his replacement score for S*P*Y*S to be one of the worst scores ever written (you have to hear it in the context of the film to truly appreciate its disastrousness), but I could listen to that music on its own for hours on end and still keep smiling.

Some may say that an era of film music has ended, but I don't believe that's true. Goldsmith's peer, John Williams, is still writing music that's remarkably fresh and inventive, and there are newer composers, following in Goldsmith's footsteps -- especially Christopher Young, Danny Elfman, Howard Shore, Elliot Goldenthal, and Thomas Newman -- who continually strive to expand the boundaries of film music, and frequently succeed.

Even though I have no musical ability (and not much grasp on musical terminology, as regular readers of my columns will have noticed), Goldsmith was always an inspiration for me, because even though many of the films he scored were lousy, the scores he wrote for them were like movie masterpieces in musical form. And someday, even though he's no longer around to write scores, I would like to write a movie worthy of his music.

-- Robert Reneau (aka "Scott Bettencourt")

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