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Below, the obituary from today's Los Angeles Times:
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-poledouris10nov10,0,1873448,print.story?coll=la-home-obituaries
Basil Poledouris, 61; film composer known for his bold sounds
By Valerie J. Nelson
Times Staff Writer
November 10, 2006
Basil Poledouris, a composer whose sweeping score for the 1989 miniseries "Lonesome Dove" won him an Emmy and who became known for the bold orchestral sounds he brought to such films as "Conan the Barbarian" and "The Hunt for Red October," has died. He was 61.
Poledouris, who scored more than 80 films and television shows, died of cancer Wednesday at his Los Angeles home, a family spokeswoman said.
"When we were all beginners at USC, he was the most talented of any of us," said director John Milius, speaking of a 1960s film school class that included future directors George Lucas and Randal Kleiser ("The Blue Lagoon" .
"He was one of the truly great movie composers. His music had tremendous emotion … a certain kind of nobility," Milius, who used Poledouris for the sword-and-sorcery epic "Conan" (1982), told The Times.
After scoring more than 100 education films with such titles as "A Day in the Life of a Dollar Bill," Poledouris got his feature film break in "Big Wednesday," a 1978 surfing movie by Milius, who was a surfing buddy.
Later, Milius hired the composer to score "Red Dawn" (1984), "Farewell to the King" (1989) and "Flight of the Intruder" (1991).
Last summer, Poledouris directed a concert version of his "Conan" score at a film music conference in Ubeda, Spain. He considered the experience a career highlight, said Doreen Ringer Ross, a vice president of the BMI performing rights agency who had worked with him more than 20 years.
"When we got to Ubeda, there were 700 or 800 fans screaming his name and wanting his autograph," Ross told The Times.
"He was already sick, but he did such a brilliant job conducting. It was the most emotional musical moment," Ross said.
For CBS' "Lonesome Dove," based on the Larry McMurtry novel about an arduous cattle drive, Poledouris wrote more than 4 1/2 hours of music. The mainly symphonic score was "Copelandesque," The Times said in 1990.
The composer had long professional relationships with several directors, including Kleiser, for whom he scored "The Blue Lagoon" (1980), "It's My Party" (1996) and other films. For Paul Verhoeven, the musician's work included "Robocop" (1987) and "Starship Troopers" (1997).
A penchant for choral music could he heard in some of his scores, including that for "Red October" (1990), a Cold War thriller.
Basil Konstantine Poledouris was born Aug. 21, 1945, in Kansas City, Mo., and grew up in Garden Grove.
At 7, he started taking piano lessons. In high school, he performed with a folk music group called the Southlanders, according to a 1997 Copley News Service feature.
After studying music at Cal State Long Beach, Poledouris transferred to USC, where an interest in composing for movies took hold, nurtured by film-scoring classes taught by Miklos Rozsa. Poledouris graduated with a bachelor's degree in film and music
"I wandered into the cinema department … and immediately thought that it looked to me like film was the music of my generation," he said on his website, www.basil-poledouris.com . "It was an extraordinary time of social upheaval, and film just seemed to be a part of it."
Poledouris, who was divorced, lived on Vashon Island in Washington's Puget Sound for several years and had recently returned to Los Angeles.
He is survived by two daughters, Zoe of Los Angeles and Alexis of New York City; his mother, Helen; and a brother, John, both of Palm Desert.
No services will be held.
Instead of flowers, the family requests donations to the Catalina Island Conservancy, P.O. Box 2739, Avalon, CA 90704, or the Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation, www.mhopus.org .
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I'm sorry to hear about this. Another well-known film composer dies.
I don't know his music very well, but I hope in the coming years to see some of the films he scored. I remember that I quite liked his On Deadly Ground score, and some material from Wind.
RIP.
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FYI the entire concert has been recorded, there was a (I'm told very expensive) microphone set up during the performance.
There was a DVD rekease of the first Ubeda conference issued at this years edition, hopefully next year they can offer the concert on DVD.
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There was a DVD rekease of the first Ubeda conference issued at this years edition, hopefully next year they can offer the concert on DVD.
Wow, are you kidding? A chance to see the concert of all concerts? If anyone wants to take pre-orders right now, I've got my credit card number right here.
RIP Basil... and thank you to whomever gave us those YouTube videos from the concert... they are simply breathtaking.
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This is probably not the time or the place, but has anyone noticed the spam messages that have appeared amongst all the condolences on Poledouris' website forum? I felt like throwing my computer across the room when I found out. Do these people have no respect?
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I am distraught. He was like our secret weapon, waiting to be produced. I knew it was the end of an era anyway, but as long as Basil was waiting in the wings to be recognised and brought forth there was hope for the future, now I don't know ? I don't know. I think Basil Poledouris was the Sergio Leone of Film Music for me, at least American/British Film Music. There is still Ennio.
Niall.
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Do these people have no respect?
They're probably not even people. Try not to let it bother you.
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They're probably not even people. Try not to let it bother you.
You are right. They, and their 'messages', don't even deserve to be acknowledged. I just think the Poledouris family (who read the messages posted on that forum) has enough to deal with at the moment without seeing that sort of stuff. Fortunately, it appears as though the spam has been deleted since I posted my original message about it.
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*bump*
Sorry, not ready to let this one go yet. Not at all.
NP: Farewell To The King (for maybe the ninth time since Thursday).
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