Oscar-winning composer Jerry Goldsmith finally received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame today, May 9, 2017. For a section in this week’s Variety, I asked composers who knew him and directors who worked with him for a little perspective on the man and his career. Goldsmith, whose filmography included The Sand Pebbles, Patton, Chinatown, Planet of the Apes, five Star Trek films and more than 100 others, was among the most respected composers in the history of Hollywood. Directors Joe Dante, Paul Verhoeven and Fred Schepisi contributed thoughts, as did composers David Newman, Christophe Beck and Charles Fox. Goldsmith died way too early, in 2004, and the star is not only overdue but well deserved. Here is the main story and here is a sidebar discussing 10 of his greatest scores. Finally, here is a complete rundown of the ceremony, who attended and what was said.
Tag Archives: ” Charles Fox
“Rebel Without a Cause” by the LA Phil
The Los Angeles Philharmonic, in partnership with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, is doing a weekend of live-to-picture concerts of classic films. I’ve been asked to do the pre-concert talks, but instead of a lecture, I’m interviewing the conductors and current/former Academy music-branch governors. We began Thursday night with Leonard Rosenman’s score for the 1955 James Dean classic Rebel Without a Cause. Joining me in Disney Concert Hall were Scott Dunn, who not only restored the score for live performance (this was its debut) but also knew the composer quite well; and Charles Fox, the Grammy- and Emmy-winning composer and songwriter who is also a former Academy governor. We all talked about Rosenman’s life and career, and more specifically about his unique approach to Rebel — which combined his groundbreaking modernist style with a lively urban-jazz touch. Philharmonic performances of On the Waterfront and Casablanca will follow.
Academy stages an Oscar concert
The Academy’s musical choices were all fine in its first staged concert of Academy Award-nominated music. The problems were the host and the interviewer, neither of whom came off well. My editors chose to leave out my recitation of the more ludicrous moments. This is what didn’t make it into the Variety story:
Film critic Elvis Mitchell, enlisted to interview the composers between segments, was hit-and-miss, getting one of the Arcade Fire composers’ names wrong (“William Phillips”? It’s William Butler) and drawing head-scratching and irrelevant parallels with his favorite Western scores (Ennio Morricone for Gravity, Williams’ obscure The Missouri Breaks for The Book Thief, which could not be farther afield from one another).
Hosting AYS’s second Goldsmith concert
This was one of those “how lucky am I?” moments: Suggesting Jerry Goldsmith’s Emmy-winning Americana score for The Red Pony to conductor David Newman for the afternoon performance, and then watching him conduct a new 15-minute suite from it with musicians from the American Youth Symphony. I moderated a discussion afterwards and, that evening, hosted a concert that included some of my all-time favorite Goldsmith: a new suite from Papillon, unused music (to picture!) from Alien, and music from QB VII and The Omen films. We walked out of there saying, “was this all just a dream?!” Here‘s a rundown of an unforgettable evening at Royce Hall.