Composer Earle Hagen dies at 88.
Los Angeles, C.A., April 28, 2008 Hagen, who is heard whistling the folksy tune for "The Andy
Griffith Show," died Monday night at his home in Rancho Mirage,
his wife, Laura, said Tuesday. He had been in ill health for
several months.
During his long musical career, Hagen performed with the top
bands of the swing era, composed for movies and television and
wrote one of the first textbooks on movie composing.
He and Lionel Newman were nominated for an Academy Award for
best music scoring for the 1960 Marilyn Monroe movie "Let's Make
Love."
For television, he composed original music for more than 3,000
episodes, pilots and TV movies, including theme songs for "That
Girl," "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C."
"He loved it," his wife said. "The music just flowed from
him, and he would take off one hat and put on another and go on to
the next show."
Hagen enjoyed the immediacy of the small screen, he told the
American Society of Musicians Arrangers & Composers in 2000.
"It was hard work, with long hours and endless deadlines, but
being able to write something one day and hear it a few days later
appealed to me," he said. "Besides, I was addicted to the
ultimate narcosis in music, which is the rush you get when you give
a downbeat and wonderful players breathe life into the notes you
have put on paper."
Born July 9, 1919, in Chicago, Hagen moved to Los Angeles as a
youngster. He began playing the trombone while in junior high
school.
"The school actually furnished him with a tuba and his mother
made him take it back," his wife said.
He became so proficient that he graduated early from Hollywood
High School and at 16 was touring with big bands. He played
trombone with Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey and arranged for and
played with Ray Noble's orchestra.
He and Newman wrote "Harlem Nocturne" for Noble in 1939. It
has been covered many times since and served as the theme music for
"Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer" television series in 1984.
In 1941, Hagen became a staff musician for CBS but the next year
he enlisted in the military.
After the war, he worked as a composer and orchestrator for 20th
Century-Fox studios on dozens of movies, including another Monroe
classic, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes."
In the 1950s, he and Herbert Spencer formed an orchestra
partnership that also wrote music for television, including scoring
the Danny Thomas hit "Make Room for Daddy."
Later, he worked as musical director for producer Sheldon
Leonard, sometimes working on as many of five shows a week.
One of his more notable TV scoring efforts was for the 1960s
adventure series "I Spy," starring Bill Cosby and Robert Culp.
Because the show used exotic locations worldwide, Hagen often
included ethnic touches in the incidental music, among them hiring
Greek musicians to play for some episodes that took place in
Greece. On other locations, he collected ethnic music to mix with
Western music back in Hollywood.
After retiring from TV work in 1986, Hagen taught a workshop in
film and television scoring.
He also wrote three books on scoring, including 1971's "Scoring
for Films," one of the earliest textbooks on the subject. His 2002
autobiography was titled "Memoirs of a Famous Composer - Nobody
Ever Heard Of."
Besides his wife, Hagen is survived by his sons, Deane and
James, both of Palm Desert; stepchildren Rebecca Roberts, of
Irvine, Richard Roberts of Los Angeles and Rachael Roberts of
Irvine; and four grandchildren. His first wife, Elouise Hagen, died
in 2002 following 59 years of marriage.
(Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)