Jerry Goldsmith was born on February 10, 1929 in Los Angeles to a Romanian-Jewish family. His musical education began very quickly, as he was learning piano at the age of 6. At the age of 14, he took lessons in composition and music theory. Initially, he was thinking of a career as a classical music composer, dreaming of performing in a concert hall. However, after hearing scores of Miklos Rózsy to the film Spellbound (1945). Decided to start training in the direction of the film composition at the University of Southern California, for a time even attended classes conducted by Rózsa.
He created his first compositions mainly for such series as Perry Mason , Strefy mokoku and Gunsmoke . His film debut was Black Patch in 1957. In the following years, he also wrote for, inter alia, Fate is the Hunter (1964), The Satan Bug (1965), Planet of the Apes (1968), The Illustrated Man (1969), Logan’s Escapes (1976), Alien – Eighth Passenger Nostromo ( 1979), Supergirl (1984), Runaway (1984), Naked Instinct (1992), Lost World: Jurassic Park(1997), Mulan (1998), Mummy (1999), two Gremlins , the first three Rambo movies and seven productions (both movies and series) of the Star Trek series .
Jerry Goldsmith’s work was awarded one Oscar, although he was nominated for this award 18 times. He received the statuette for the music to the film Omen (1976). The composer also won an Annie Award, five Emmys, one Saturn Award and one Golden Raspberry for Rambo II (1985).
Unfortunately, Jerry Goldsmith died on July 21, 2004 after a long cancer illness.