Gerald Fried, a composer whose music for 1960s television shows like “Star Trek” and “Gilligan’s Island” had a lasting impression on a generation of TV viewers and for which he received an Emmy, passed away on Friday from pneumonia at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He was 95.
In addition to scoring five early Stanley Kubrick films, including “Paths of Glory” and “The Killing,” he also received five other Emmy nominations for his music for specials, TV movies, and miniseries, as well as the one and only Oscar nomination for a documentary score, for “Birds Do It, Bees Do It,” in 1975.
Throughout the course of a career that lasted more than six decades, the prolific Fried composed the music for over 40 films, about thirty TV movies and miniseries, and episodes of another forty TV series.
One of his most well-known TV show themes came from the first season of “Star Trek.” The Spock-in-heat episode “Amok Time,” which included his Vulcan-battle music that was frequently used on the series and later spoofed on shows like “The Simpsons” and films like “The Cable Man,” is the most well-known of the five episodes he scored for the show.
Approximately two dozen episodes of the well-known spy series “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” were scored by Fried, helping to musically establish the settings for the intrepid secret agents as well as a dozen episodes of the castaway sitcom “Gilligan’s Island,” which, thanks to endless reruns, brought in more royalties than any other project he had ever worked on.
Gerald Fried Cause Of Death: How did Gerald Fried die?
According to reports, Gerald Fried died of pneumonia. Fried was introduced to filmmaking by his childhood friend Stanley Kubrick; he scored the nascent filmmaker’s debut short, 1951’s “Day of the Fight,” and went on to score his first four features, “Fear and Desire,” “Killer’s Kiss,” and “The Killing,” before concluding with the antiwar classic “Paths of Glory” in 1957. The Killing of Sister George (1968) and “Too Late the Hero” are two of the four movies he also provided the music for with director Robert Aldrich (1970).