Jerry Goldsmith

Oscar and Emmy Award-winner Jerry Goldsmith was one of film and television’s pre-eminent composers. He won an Academy Award for the score of The Omen and earned additional nominations for Best Score for Mulan, LA Confidential, Basic Instinct, Hoosiers, Under Fire, Poltergeist, Star Trek – The Motion Picture, The Boys From Brazil, The Wind and the Lion, Chinatown, Papillon, Patton, Planet of the Apes, The Sand Pebbles, A Patch of Blue,and Freud.

With an extensive classical background, Goldsmith came to film through radio and television. In scoring live weekly radio dramas, he developed an impressive technique which served him well in films. Stylistically, his music was quite advanced, particularly in his early films. Perhaps more than anyone in his generation, he was an experimenter. As a result, there was a high degree of originality in his scores. He was fascinated by technology, invested heavily in the new electronic instruments, and always tried to stay abreast of the times.

Goldsmith received numerous Golden Globe and Grammy nominations during a career that included nearly 150 film scores. Other credits include: Game of Their Lives, Sum of All Fears, Along Came a Spider, Air Force One, River Wild, Six Degrees of Separation, Rudy, Sleeping with the Enemy, Total Recall, Rambo: First Blood Part II, Alien, and several films in the Star Trek series.

Goldsmith was a member of the Composers and Lyricists Guild and served on the Advisory Board of the Society of Composers and Lyricists. He died in July, 2004.

Here is a clip of Jerry Goldsmith’s Keynote Address at the 2002 State of the Art Conference:

This is a video tribute presented at the 2005 SCL Membership meeting, which opens with Jerry Goldsmith at the podium. The footage contains a cascade of montages and themes from his greatest films. Produced and edited by Ron Grant.