I know it is a death and all deaths are sad; however, he set the anthem for a generation.
These are the values I grew up with, readers!!!!
"Alexander Courage; wrote 'Star Trek' theme" by Robert Jablon, Associated Press | May 30, 2008
LOS ANGELES - Alexander "Sandy" Courage, an Emmy-winning and Academy Award-nominated arranger, orchestrator, and composer who created the otherworldly theme for the "Star Trek" TV show, has died. He was 88.
Mr. Courage died May 15 at the Sunrise assisted-living facility in Pacific Palisades, his stepdaughter Renata Pompelli of Los Angeles, said yesterday. He had been in poor health for three years.
Mr. Courage collaborated on dozens of movies and orchestrated some of the greatest musicals of the 1950s and 1960s, including "My Fair Lady," "Hello, Dolly!" "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers," "Gigi," "Porgy and Bess," and "Fiddler on the Roof."
"My Fair Lady" another of my FAVORITE movies, although I do not have it listed on the blog!
But his most famous work is undoubtedly the "Star Trek" theme, which he composed, arranged, and conducted in a week in 1965.
"I have to confess to the world that I am not a science fiction fan," Mr. Courage said in an interview for the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation's Archive of American Television in 2000.
"Never have been. I think it's just marvelous malarkey," he added. "So you write some, you hope, marvelous malarkey music that goes with it."
Mr. Courage said the tune, with its ringing fanfare, eerie soprano part, and swooping orchestration, was inspired by an arrangement of the song "Beyond the Blue Horizon," which he heard as a boy.
"Little did I know when I wrote that first A-flat for the flute that it was going to go down in history, somehow," Courage said. "It's a very strange feeling."
Mr. Courage said he also mouthed the "whooshing" sound heard as the starship Enterprise zooms through the opening credits of the TV show....
A friend and colleague of movie composers John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith, he also provided the orchestration for such movies as "The Poseidon Adventure," "Jurassic Park," "Basic Instinct," and "The Mummy" and supplied arrangements for the Boston Pops while Williams was conductor....
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Update:
"'Star Trek' director Pevney dies at 96""PALM DESERT, Calif. - Joseph Pevney, who directed some of the best-loved episodes of the original "Star Trek" television series, has died. He was 96.
Pevney died May 18 at his home in Palm Desert, said his wife, Margo.
Pevney directed 14 episodes of the 1960s series, including "The City on the Edge of Forever," in which Capt. Kirk and Spock travel back in time to the Depression, and "The Trouble With Tribbles," in which the starship Enterprise is infested with cute, furry creatures.
City on the Edge was probably the best Start Trek episode ever, and it had a beautiful Joan Collins as a guest star, readers!!!
Pevney loved the series, said his son, Jay.
"He was surprised at the longevity of it because it was not a popular series at the time; it hit its real popularity (in syndication) after it was over," he said.
Pevney directed with precision and was highly organized "but he was very relaxed - in fact, jovial - in the way he directed," said George Takei, who played Sulu. "I enjoyed working with him."
.... In the 1960s and '70s Pevney turned to television, directing dozens of episodes of series such as "Wagon Train," "Fantasy Island," "The Incredible Hulk" and "Trapper John, M.D."
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