David Raksin

David Raksin (August 4, 1912 – August 9, 2004) was an American composer born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Jewish parents of Russian heritage. His father worked as an orchestra conductor, and Raksin began performing professionally in dance bands while still a student at Central High School of Philadelphia. He pursued formal training in composition, studying with Harl McDonald at the University of Pennsylvania, then continuing his education with Isadore Freed in New York and Arnold Schoenberg in Los Angeles. Before establishing himself in film, Raksin worked in New York as an arranger for Harms/Chappell.

Raksin accumulated more than 100 film scores and 300 television scores over the course of his career, a body of work that led some sources to refer to him as the "Grandfather of Film Music." Among his earliest film work was a position as assistant to Charlie Chaplin on the score for Modern Times in 1936. His most enduring contribution to film music came with his score for Laura in 1944. The theme from that film, with lyrics subsequently added by Johnny Mercer, became a major commercial success and was reportedly the second most-recorded song in history during Raksin's lifetime, surpassed only by "Stardust" by Hoagy Carmichael and Mitchell Parish.

Raksin composed the theme for The Bad and the Beautiful in 1953, a piece he insisted be released as an instrumental. His decision stemmed from his experience with "Laura," for which he had been required to share proceeds with a lyricist. The theme initially met resistance from director Vincente Minnelli and producer John Houseman, but its survival was credited to the support of Adolph Green and Betty Comden. The piece later drew praise from Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Rosenman, Richard Rodney Bennett, and Alexander Courage, with Sondheim reportedly describing it as one of the best themes ever written for film. Raksin also scored the 1958 film Separate Tables, earning an Academy Award nomination for that work. In the 1960s, he composed the theme for and scored the pilot of the television medical drama Ben Casey.

On Broadway, Raksin contributed to several productions across more than six decades. His earliest stage credits were as co-orchestrator on a series of revues: Thumbs Up! in 1934, Parade and At Home Abroad in 1935, and New Faces of 1936 in 1936. His sole Broadway composing credit was If the Shoe Fits in 1946, a musical for which he served as composer. Decades later, his "Laura" theme was featured in the 1997 revue Dream.

Later in his career, Raksin taught composition at both the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles. In 2012, he was named for a Lifetime Achievement Award for a Past Film Composer. At the time of his death at age 92, Raksin had completed an autobiography, initially titled If I Say So Myself, which was subsequently published under the title The Bad and the Beautiful: My Life in a Golden Age of Film Music. His son Alex is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer for the Los Angeles Times.