LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Jerry Goldsmith, an Oscar- and Emmy-winning film and TV composer so prolific that hardly a day goes by when one of his works is not being played somewhere in the world, has died at age 75, his family said on Thursday.
His 200 film scores include: "Alien," "Star Trek: The Motion Picture," "Chinatown," "Patton," "MacArthur," "Planet of the Apes," "L.A. Confidential," "Basic Instinct." "A Patch of Blue," "Poltergeist." "Rambo - First Blood, Part 2" and "Freud."
Goldsmith won an Oscar for his score for the 1976 horror thriller "The Omen" and also received a best song nomination for his song in that film, in which he reversed "Ave Maria" making it into a hymn for the devil, "Ave Satani."
Goldsmith composed the theme music for several hit TV series including "The Waltons," "The Man From U.N.C.L.E.," "Dr. Kildare," "Barnaby Jones" and "Star Trek: Voyager." He also composed a fanfare for the annual Academy Awards which is still being used.
He died in his sleep on Wednesday night at his Beverly Hills home after a long battle with cancer, his family said.
A five-time Emmy Award winner, Goldsmith also received 17 Academy Award nominations over a career spanning nearly a half century. His only Oscar was for "The Omen," in which Gregory Peck leads a doomed effort to stop the son of Satan from growing up and taking over the world.
Goldsmith's widow, Carol, told Reuters her husband always refused to choose a favorite among his works saying, "My favorite score is the one I haven't written yet."
She added, "He also used to lecture his film school students that if they were scoring a scene for a man on a horse galloping away, you don't score the gallop but you score the fear of the rider."
He won fame in the industry for the speed with which he composed and recorded a new score for "Chinatown," after the producers had rejected a score by another composer. "Chinatown" producer Robert Evans said the score was written in nine days and saved the 1974 film from disaster.
John Burlingame said in the Variety International Film Guide that the "Chinatown" score "written for an unusual ensemble of four pianos, four harps, strings, two percussionists and trumpet .... is now a classic of the private eye genre."
Besides his wife, Goldsmith is survived by five children, six grandchildren and a great-grandchild.
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