Gerald Fried, Emmy Winner for ‘Roots’ and Composer for ‘Star Trek,’ ‘Gilligan’s Island,’ Dies at 95
variety.comJon Burlingame editor Composer Gerald Fried, who won an Emmy for the landmark miniseries “Roots” and whose 1960s scores, from “Star Trek” to “Gilligan’s Island,” left an indelible impression on a generation of TV watchers, died of pneumonia Friday at St.
Vincent’s Hospital in Bridgeport, Ct. He was 95. His wide-ranging career included scoring five early Stanley Kubrick films, including “Paths of Glory” and “The Killing”; receiving the only Oscar nomination ever given for a documentary score, 1975’s “Birds Do It, Bees Do It”; and earning five other Emmy nominations for music in specials, TV movies and miniseries.
The prolific Fried scored approximately 40 films, some three dozen TV-movies and miniseries, and episodes of another 40 TV series during a career that spanned more than six decades.
Among his most famous TV series music was from the original “Star Trek.” He scored five episodes of the series, most famously the Spock-in-heat episode “Amok Time,” which featured his Vulcan-battle music that was often used on the series and later parodied on shows like “The Simpsons” and movies including “The Cable Guy.” Fried also scored nearly two dozen episodes of the popular spy series “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.,” musically establishing the locales for the globetrotting secret agents; and about a dozen episodes of the castaway sitcom “Gilligan’s Island,” which, because of endless reruns, earned him more in royalties than anything else he ever scored.
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