Jerry Goldsmith

Jerry Goldsmith started studying the piano at the age of six and had moved onto composition and theory by the time he was 14. After graduating from the University of South Carolina, Goldsmith began his career as a composer in a rather inauspicious job as a clerk typist in the music department at CBS. He started composing themes for radio shows, moving onto popular TV shows including Perry Mason, The Twilight Zone and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. In 1957, Goldsmith turned his attention to film and became acquainted with composer Alfred Newman, who introduced him to Universal Pictures. Recognition for the quality of his compositions came with his score for the 1962 movie Lonely Are The Brave and he cemented his reputation as one of the leading names in American film music over the following decades; penning the scores to Patton, Planet Of The Apes, Chinatown and Poltergeist. After earning a fistful of nominations, Goldsmith eventually won the Best Score Academy Award for The Omen in 1976. He continued to work right into the new millennium, but died in 2004 after losing his long battle against cancer.