Jerrald King Goldsmith (February 10, 1929 – July 21, 2004) was an American composer, conductor and orchestrator with a career in film and television scoring that spanned nearly 50 years and over 200 productions, between 1954 and 2003.

Tora!, Patton, Papillon, Chinatown, The Omen, Alien, Poltergeist, The Secret of NIMH, Medicine Man, Gremlins, Hoosiers, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Air Force One, L.A.

At age thirteen, he studied piano privately with concert pianist and educator Jakob Gimpel[5] (whom Goldsmith would later employ to perform piano solos in his score to The Mephisto Waltz) and by the age of sixteen he was studying both theory and counterpoint under Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, who also tutored such noteworthy composers and musicians as Henry Mancini, Nelson Riddle, Herman Stein, André Previn, Marty Paich, and John Williams.

At age sixteen, Goldsmith saw the 1945 film Spellbound and was inspired by Miklós Rózsa's unconventional score to pursue a career in music.

[1] Goldsmith began the decade composing for such television shows as Dr. Kildare, Gunsmoke, and Thriller as well as the drama film The Spiral Road (1962).

[11] He almost did not accept the assignment for The Blue Max when he watched the final cut with the producers who had temp-tracked it with Richard Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra.

[1] Goldsmith gained attention for the score of the post-apocalyptic science fiction film Planet of the Apes (1968), which was one of the first to be written entirely in an Avant garde style.

The main theme also consisted of a symphonic march accompanied by a pipe organ to represent the protagonist's militaristic and deeply religious nature.

[13] Goldsmith's critical success continued with his emotional score to the prison escape film Papillon (1973), which also earned him an Academy Award nomination.

[18][19] Goldsmith received an Academy Award nomination for his efforts though he lost to Nino Rota and Carmine Coppola for The Godfather Part II.

[14] Goldsmith earned further critical praise with his score to the period adventure film The Wind and the Lion (1975), which relied upon a diverse ensemble including many Moroccan instruments and a large percussion section.

[22] His wife, Carol Heather Goldsmith, also wrote lyrics and performed a vocal track titled "The Piper Dreams" released solely on the soundtrack album.

His score featured an orchestra augmented by an Indian conch horn, didgeridoo, steel drum, and serpent (a 16th-century instrument), while creating further "alien" sounds by delaying string pizzicati through an echoplex.

Director Ridley Scott and editor Terry Rawlings also, without Goldsmith's consent, purchased the rights to the "Main Title" from Freud (1962) which they used during the acid blood sequence.

His initial score for the scene in which the newly-refit Starship Enterprise is revealed to the audience was not well received by the filmmakers, director Robert Wise feeling that it lacked a strong thematic hook and evoked sailing ships.

Though somewhat irked by its rejection, Goldsmith consented to re-work his initial idea and finally arrived at the Star Trek theme which was ultimately used.

[28] The film's soundtrack also provided a debut for the Blaster Beam, an electronic instrument 12 to 15 feet (3.7 to 4.6 m) long, created by musician Craig Huxley.

[29][30] The Blaster had steel wires connected to amplifiers fitted to the main piece of aluminum; the device was played with an artillery shell.

He did, however, still manage to compose for such non-fantasy productions as the period television miniseries Masada (1981) winning an Emmy Award, the war film Inchon (1982), the action adventure First Blood (also 1982), and his Oscar- and Golden Globe Award-nominated score to political drama Under Fire (1983) in which he used the ethnic sounds of a South American pan flute, synthetic elements, and the prominently featured solo work of jazz guitarist Pat Metheny.

[1][40] He garnered another Oscar nomination for his innovative, critically acclaimed score to sports drama Hoosiers (1986), though he lost to Herbie Hancock for Round Midnight.

[44] He also composed critically acclaimed music for the science fiction action film Total Recall (also 1990), which Goldsmith later regarded as one of his best scores.

[45] Other scores of the era include Gremlins 2: The New Batch (also 1990, a film in which Goldsmith also made a brief cameo appearance),[46] the psychological thriller Sleeping with the Enemy (1991), the family comedy Mom and Dad Save the World, the fantasy romance Forever Young (both 1992), the thriller The Vanishing, and the family comedy Dennis the Menace (both 1993).

[51] Goldsmith composed acclaimed scores for such films as the superhero adaptation The Shadow, the thriller The River Wild, the romantic comedy I.Q.

[53] Goldsmith composed the critically successful score to the horror action film The Ghost and the Darkness (1996) which featured a traditional Irish folk melody interwoven with African rhythms.

[1] He also composed a score of combined Eastern, orchestral, and synthetic elements for the Disney-animated film Mulan (also 1998), which subsequently earned him his final Oscar and Golden Globe Award nominations along with songwriter Matthew Wilder and lyricist David Zippel.

[6][66] He has cited Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, Miklós Rózsa, Bernard Herrmann, Béla Bartók, and Alban Berg, among others, as some of the main influences to his style of composition.

"[75] One reason for the consistency of Goldsmith's aural resonance and signature sound is his long time professional association with orchestrator Arthur Morton.

Goldsmith went on to compose the scores for Our Man Flint, The Trouble with Angels (with Frank De Vol), The Blue Max, The Sand Pebbles, and Stagecoach (all 1966).

(1970), Papillon (1973), Chinatown (1974), The Omen (1976), MacArthur (1977), Capricorn One (1978), Alien (1979), Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), Poltergeist (1982), First Blood (1982), Under Fire (1983), The Russia House (1990).

[13] He is one of only five composers to have more than one score featured in the list, including Elmer Bernstein, Bernard Herrmann, Max Steiner, and John Williams.