Billy Goldenberg

William Leon Goldenberg was born on February 10, 1936, in Brooklyn, New York, and died on August 3, 2020. An American composer and songwriter, he built a career spanning Broadway, film, and television. His mother, a violinist, taught him the instrument, and he went on to perform with chamber and symphonic groups. His father worked as a staff percussionist at WOR and the NBC Symphonic Orchestra. Goldenberg began playing piano and singing Broadway shows at age five.

Despite his early musical inclinations, Goldenberg was steered away from a conservatory education in the early 1950s after his father was laid off. Rather than enrolling at Juilliard, he pursued physics and mathematics at Columbia College. After graduating, he worked briefly as a computer programmer before an ulcer prompted him to leave that career. He subsequently found work as a pianist and arranger, eventually receiving a commission to write music for the comedy sketches of Mike Nichols and Elaine May in the Broadway production An Evening with Nichols and May.

Goldenberg's Broadway credits as a book writer include Ballroom, a musical rooted in the world of the Queen of the Stardust Ballroom, which had itself been the subject of a 1975 television film for which he won an Emmy Award for his score.

In the mid-1960s, Goldenberg met Steven Spielberg at Universal Studios, a relationship that led to composing music for Spielberg's television work on series including The Name of the Game and Night Gallery, as well as the 1971 TV film Duel. His film scores encompassed a wide range of projects, among them the Elvis Presley vehicle Change of Habit (1969), The Grasshopper (1970), Red Sky at Morning (1971), The Last of Sheila (1973), Busting (1974), The Domino Principle (1977), and Reuben, Reuben (1983). He also scored Woody Allen's Play It Again, Sam (1972) and Up the Sandbox (1972), writing the song "If I Close My Eyes" for the latter film.

For television, Goldenberg composed the theme songs for Rhoda and Kojak, scoring the first two episodes of the latter series, and contributed music to Columbo. His Emmy Award wins included honors for The Lives of Benjamin Franklin (1974), King, and Rage of Angels, in addition to his Queen of the Stardust Ballroom recognition, bringing his total Emmy count to four. Among the many television films he scored were Fear No Evil (1969), Helter Skelter (1976), The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case (1976), Crisis at Central High (1981), and The Best Little Girl in the World (1981). His miniseries work included The Gangster Chronicles (1981), The Atlanta Child Murders (1985), Kane and Abel (1985), and Around the World in 80 Days (1989).