Jerry Fielding

Musically inclined from childhood (he was proficient at piano, sax and clarinet), Jerry Fielding became a pro at 17, as arranger for the Alvino Ray orchestra. While arranging for such Big Band leaders as Tommy Dorsey, Charlie Barnett and Kay Kyser, Fielding found time to take classes at CarnegieTech. After organizing his own jazz orchestra in 1954, he worked steadily in television, providing live music for Groucho Marx's You Bet Your Life and the 1962 summer-replacement series The Lively Ones. He also composed main-title and incidental music for the filmed TV series The Life of Riley, The Man From UNCLE, Hogan's Heroes, Columbo, McMillan and Wife and The Andros Targets. Equally busy in theatrical features, Fielding earned Oscar nominations for his work on Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch (1969) and Straw Dogs (1971), and Clint Eastwood's The Outlaw Josey Wales (1971). Jerry Fielding's movie-score manifest ran the gamut from The Crazy World of Laurel & Hardy (1967) to the 1978 remake of The Big Sleep.

~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide