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 indelib…
” 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.
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 scored episodes of many classic TV series including “Ben Casey,” “Mission: Impossible,” “Lost in Space,” “Gunsmoke,” “Wagon Train,” “Mannix,” “Police Woman” and “Dynasty.” Rarely did he get to write or co-write the themes, although he did in the case of the 1950s jazz western “Shotgun Slade,” the ’60s caveman sitcom “It’s About Time” and the steamy ’80s nighttime soap “Flamingo Road.”
Fried’s “Roots” theme embodied the hopes of African-born slaves for freedom, but much of his score was based on his extensive knowledge of 19th-century American folk music, with lots of banjo, guitar, fiddle and harmonica throughout. Controversy later erupted when Fried publicly objected to Jones’ album of “music from and inspired by” the series, which he felt was a deliberate attempt to supplant an actual “original soundtrack” which would have featured Fried’s much longer, more developed score.
His other films included Jack Nicholson’s debut film “The Cry Baby Killer” , the Roger Corman-directed “Machine Gun Kelly” , the interracial marriage story “One Potato, Two Potato” and the Sylvia Plath adaptation “The Bell Jar” . He scored about 20 documentaries, including several “National Geographic” specials, culminating in his 1975 Oscar nomination for Wolper’s “Birds Do It, Bees Do It,” the only doc ever nominated for Best Original Score.
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