He is probably best known for composing the theme music for Hawaii Five-O, a CBS television series for which he won two Emmy Awards in 1970 and 1974, and was a gold record for The Ventures.
He won two Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series for his work on Hawaii Five-O and was nominated seven other times for work on television programs, including the 1969 Hawaii Five-O pilot episode, Gunsmoke and Police Woman.
His film work included scores for films and TV movies such as Wild and Wonderful (1964), The Spy with My Face (1965), Deadly Harvest (1972), The Strangers in 7A (1972), The Horror at 37,000 Feet (1973), The Disappearance of Flight 412 (1974), Code Name: Diamond Head (1977), Wheels (1978), The One Man Jury (1978), Women in White (1979), Great White (1982) They Still Call Me Bruce (1987), Act of Piracy (1988) and the Jerry Lewis films Hardly Working (1980), Slapstick of Another Kind (1982) and Cracking Up (1983).
In addition to "Hawaii Five-O", Stevens worked on the earlier smash 1960s CBS Television series dealing with an island of a different kind: "Gilligan's Island", 1964–1967, collaborating on the series with composers John Williams, Gerald Fried, Frank Comstock, and Lyn Murray.
[3] Stevens also composed "So Old, So Young", used as the theme music (in two separate arrangements) for CBS' primetime (from 1966 to 1978) and late night (from 1972 to 1985) movie broadcasts.