He also successfully diversified into symphonic pop and the arrangement of his theme to The Saint, as re-recorded by Orbital, reached number three in the UK singles chart.
He served in the Second World War as a musician in the Royal Army Service Corps band playing saxophone and clarinet for the troops.
[2] His own band, the Ted Astley Orchestra, became well known in the north of England,[2] and he wrote songs for performers such as Anne Shelton.
[3][2] He wrote music for many British television series of the 1950s and 1960s, including incidental music for The Champions, and the opening titles to The Adventures of Robin Hood (with the exception for the closing titles), Danger Man[4] (known as Secret Agent in North America, where a new graphic opening credit sequence was added which featured the song "Secret Agent Man" by P.F.
Sloan and Steve Barri and was followed by the original English credits accompanied by Astley's High Wire theme),[3] Department S, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), The Saint, Gideon's Way and The Baron.
[5] However, Astley showed his diversity by writing the music for Sir Kenneth Clark's BBC documentary series Civilisation (1969),[3] and scoring several British Transport Films including Diesel Train Ride (1959), Broad Waterways (1959/60) and The Signal Engineers (1962).
[7] Astley's actual recorded output is quite sparse, consisting of a few singles and albums of the music from The Saint and Danger Man.
[8] In 1977, Astley wrote the orchestral score for Street in the City, a song recorded for the Pete Townshend and Ronnie Lane album Rough Mix.