Shirley Anne Walker (née Rogers; April 10, 1945 – November 30, 2006) was an American film and television composer and conductor.
Walker was one of the first female composers to earn a solo score credit on a major Hollywood motion picture (preceded by Suzanne Ciani for 1981's The Incredible Shrinking Woman) and according to the Los Angeles Times, is remembered as a pioneer for women in the film industry.
[7] Shortly after graduating from Pleasant Hill High School, Walker composed the score for a full length musical adaptation of Moliere's The Imaginary Invalid called Make Way For Love, with book & lyrics by W. Grant Gray.
This gave her an official start and made her one of the rare and few female film composers of the time alongside Wendy Carlos, Rachel Elkind, Delia Derbyshire, Angela Morley, and Suzanne Ciani.
Her roles would include making sure each cue was recorded how it needed to be with the speed, tone, and musical sound design in mind, based on the composer’s wishes as well as her own.
Some of these included Murder in Coweta Country (1980) for Brad Fiedel, Cujo (1983) for Charles Bernstein, and Ghost Warrior (1984) for Richard Band for which she also wrote additional music.
Walker also composed additional cues for both Nightbreed and Dick Tracy, and unless it was Elfman regular Steve Bartek, she likely orchestrated and conducted the theme for Tales from the Crypt.
Chevy Chase, who would play the lead in John Carpenter's 1992 film Memoirs of an Invisible Man, recalled visiting a recording session for Christmas Vacation and being impressed by the conductor.
Walker served as composer for numerous productions, including films such as Willard, the first three Final Destination installments, and television series such as Falcon Crest, Space: Above and Beyond, China Beach, and The Flash.
While managing her working relationships with Elfman and Fiedel, Walker would mentor and collaborate with up-and-comer Hans Zimmer (who would provide synths for Mask of the Phantasm).
The lyrics which the choir sing throughout the Mask of the Phantasm score, often presumed to be in Latin or some similar language, are actually the names off all the orchestra members backwards, so what’s being sung is essentially nonsense.
[9] Bruce Timm, who co-created Batman: The Animated Series alongside Eric Radomski, told Vulture he was watching The Flash starring John Wesley Shipp and recognized the score sounded familiar.
"[13] Still, she met with producers for Batman: The Animated Series, and was so impressed with the direction of the show’s art and the intended depth of its characters that she agreed to come onboard.
Her relationship with Danny Elfman facilitated the use of that film’s music in the series, though Walker also composed her own equally memorable theme.
You can hear her explain the difference between the two pieces of music, the tonal sections of her Batman theme and how she would blend them together to map over the show’s various moods and scenes, in a track from the soundtrack album.
Just after completing work on the feature Black Christmas and after finishing the first three scores of the Final Destination series, Shirley Walker died November 30, 2006, from complications following a stroke in Reno, Nevada.
In the DVD commentary for Final Destination, Walker recounts a time when there was a problem with music being recorded for a Disney picture she was conducting.
The composer and producers were sitting in the control booth, playing back the recordings and bickering, leaving the musicians idle for forty-five minutes.
She utilized this, and knowing that the orchestra couldn’t actually be heard unless recording was in progress, she mimed conducting, waving her arms, pointing to the score, and completely putting on an act for the producers, but all the while telling jokes and keeping things light with the musicians.
[9] Despite the fact that very few female composers had worked in Hollywood at the time of her death, Walker was not recognized during the "In Memoriam" segment of the 79th Academy Awards.