Basil Poledouris

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Basil Poledouris

Background information
Birth name Basilis Konstantine Poledouris
Born August 21, 1945(1945-08-21)
Kansas City, Missouri, USA
Died November 8, 2006 (aged 61)
Los Angeles, California, USA
Genre(s) Film score
Occupation(s) Composer, conductor
Instrument(s) Piano, Orchestra
Years active 1970 - 2003
Website http://www.basil-poledouris.com/

Basilis "Basil" Konstantine Poledouris (August 21, 1945 - November 8, 2006) was a Greek American film composer.

Contents

[edit] Biography

Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Basil Poledouris credited two influences with guiding him towards music: the first was composer Miklós Rózsa, the second was his Greek Orthodox heritage. Poledouris was raised in the church, and used to sit in services, enthralled with the choir's sound [1]. At age 7 he began piano lessons, and eventually enrolled at the University of Southern California to study both film and music. Several short films to which he contributed still reside in the university's archives. At USC he met directors John Milius and Randal Kleiser, with both of whom the composer would later collaborate. In 1985, he scored Flesh & Blood for director Paul Verhoeven, again establishing another ongoing collaboration.

Poledouris became renowned for his powerfully epic style of orchestral composition and his intricate thematic designs, and garnered attention for his scores to The Blue Lagoon (1980; dir: Kleiser), Conan the Barbarian (1982; dir: Milius), Conan the Destroyer (1984), Red Dawn (1984; dir: Milius), RoboCop (1987; dir: Verhoeven), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Free Willy (1993) and its sequels, Starship Troopers (1997; dir: Verhoeven) and For Love of the Game (1999).

His studio, Blowtorch Flats, is located in Venice, CA and is a professional mixing facility specializing in film and media production.

Poledouris married his wife, Bobbie, in 1969 and had two daughters, Zoë and Alexis. The elder, Zoë Poledouris, is an actress and film composer who occasionally collaborated with her father composing film soundtracks.

His score for Conan the Barbarian is considered by many to be one of the finest examples of motion picture scoring ever written.[2][3][4][5]

In 1996 he scored the "The Tradition of the Games"[1] for the Atlanta Olympics Opening Ceremony that accompanied the memorable dance tribute[2] to the athletes and goddesses of victory of the ancient Greek Olympics using silhouette imagery.[3]

He spent the last four years of his life living on Vashon Island, in Washington state, and died on November 8, 2006 in Los Angeles, California [6], aged 61, due to complications from cancer.

[edit] Filmography

[edit] Films

[edit] Mini-series

[edit] Television

  • Congratulations, It's a Boy (1971)
  • Three for the Road (1974)
  • Hollywood 90028 (1979)
  • Dolphin (1979)
  • A Whale for the Killing (1981)
  • Fire on the Mountain (1981)
  • Amazons (1984)
  • Single Women, Single Bars (1984)
  • Alfred Hitchcock Presents (pilot) (1985)
  • Misfits of Science (pilot) (1986)
  • The Twilight Zone: "Profile in Silver" (1986)
  • The Twilight Zone: "Monsters" (1986)
  • The Twilight Zone: "A Message from Charity" (1986)
  • Prison for Children (1987)
  • Island Sons (pilot) (1987)
  • Intrigue (pilot) (1988)
  • L.A. Takedown (pilot) (1989)
  • Nasty Boys (pilot) (1989)
  • Nasty Boys: "Lone Justice" (1990)
  • Life & Times of Ned Blessing (pilot) (1991)
  • If These Walls Could Talk II (2000)
  • Love and Treason (2001)

[edit] Other works

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Basil Poledouris. 1996 Olympics Opening Ceremony - Honor and Glory CD Audio. Basil Poledouris website. Retrieved on 2008-02-19.
  2. ^ Atlanta 1996 Olympic Games opening ceremony via Youtube (video). CBC TV via YouTube. Retrieved on 2008-02-19.
  3. ^ Basil Poledouris Biography. Basil Poledouris website. Retrieved on 2008-02-19.

[edit] External links