Film Music Reporter

Billy Goldenberg has passed away at age 84. The composer wrote dozens of scores for film and television between the late 60s and late 90s. His best known works include the first theme for Kojak, his scores for seven episodes of Columbo, Herbert Ross’ 1975 feature The Last of Sheila,  Michael Schultz’s 1979 comedy Scavenger Hunt, and the themes for the CBS comedy Rhoda, the ABC western Alias Smith and Jones and the NBC drama Our House. He collaborated with Steven Spielberg on two of the director’s early projects, Night Gallery and Duel, and later scored several episodes of the Spielberg-produced anthology series Amazing Stories. Throughout his career, he received over 20 Primetime Emmy Award nominations and won the award multiple times for the 1974/75 mini-series The Lives of Benjamin Franklin, the 1978 Martin Luther King Jr. biographical mini-series King and the TV movies Queen of the Stardust Ballroom and Rage of Angels. His other scoring credits include the 1976 mini-series Helter Skelter, Irvin Keshner’s theatrical feature Up the Sandbox, Peter Hyams’ 1974 movie Busting, Robert Ellis Miller’s Reuben, Reuben and the 1989 mini-series Around the World in 80 Days. Screenwriter Gary Gerani who is currently working on a documentary about the composer, Romantic Mysticism: The Music of Billy Goldenberg, announced the news of Goldenberg’s passing on social media.