Online Encyclopedia
Jerry Goldsmith
Jerrald Goldsmith (February 10, 1929 - July 21, 2004) was a famous film score composer from Los Angeles, California. Goldsmith was nominated for eighteen Academy Awards and won one, and also won five Emmy Awards.
Goldsmith learned to play the piano at age six. At fourteen, he studied composition, theory and counterpoint with teachers Jacob Gimpel and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. Goldsmith attended the University of Southern California, with teacher Miklós Rózsa, who had written the score for the Ingrid Bergman movie Spellbound. Goldsmith developed an interest in writing scores for movies after being inspired by Rózsa.
In 1950, Goldsmith found work at CBS as a clerk in the network's music department. He soon began writing scores for live radio shows. Goldsmith went on to compose the music for several CBS radio and television shows including The Twilight Zone. He remained at CBS until 1960, after which he moved on to Revue Studios , where he would compose music for television shows such as Dr. Kildare and The Man From U.N.C.L.E.. He also worked on the score for Patton.
In 1962, Goldsmith was nominated for an Oscar for his job in Freud . Shortly after, he met Alfred Newman, who was instrumental in Goldsmith's hiring by Universal Studios. At Universal, Goldsmith worked on several famous movies such as The Omen, Poltergeist, Alien, Chinatown (for which he wrote a particularly apt and haunting theme), Gremlins, Supergirl, First Blood, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Hoosiers, The Wind and the Lion , and many others. He was awarded his first and only Oscar for The Omen. He also was awarded an Emmy for his work on QB VII.
Goldsmith also composed for The Waltons, and he composed the scores for five Star Trek films and the title theme for the Star Trek: Voyager television series. The title theme for Star Trek: The Next Generation was a slightly modified piece from Goldsmith's score for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. He wrote a fanfare for the Academy Awards presentation show.
Goldsmith lived with his wife, singer Carol Heather Goldsmith , in Beverly Hills. He died after a long struggle with liver cancer.
His son, Joel Goldsmith, is also a composer.