Brad Fiedel

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Brad Fiedel (born March 10, 1951 in New York, New York) is an American film composer. A popular and progressive composer in the 1980s, he worked on several successful movies, predominantly in the action and thriller genres, and pioneered the use of electronic instruments and synthesizers, before almost disappearing from the mainstream at the end of the 1990s.

He began his career in film in the late 1970s, and wrote extensively for TV movies and minor cinema releases, until director James Cameron hired him to score a low budget sci-fi film called The Terminator in 1984, setting the wheels in motion for a successful career. The film went on to become one of the box office hits of the decade, launched the career of a little-known Austrian bodybuilder called Arnold Schwarzenegger, and gave Fiedel his entry in the annals of film music history — the metallic, pounding, powerful main theme has since become the defining signature work of his career.

Since then Fiedel has scored many popular and successful movies, including Fright Night (1985), The Big Easy (1987), The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988), The Accused (1988), Blue Steel (1990), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Blink (1994) and True Lies (1994), although in recent years, Fiedel has not been in demand as much as he once was. His last major theatrical score was in 1995, and although he enjoyed a brief period of renewed interest following the release of Terminator 3 in 2003, when composer Marco Beltrami wrote an orchestral arrangement of his theme, he sadly shows no sign of returning to the film music arena any time soon.

Fiedel is married to actress Ann Dusenberry.