Basil Poledouris was born on August 21, 1945 in Kansas City. He started
taking piano lessons when he was 7 years old. Eventually, he went on to
become a student at USC, where he studied the arts of directing,
cinematography, editing, sound and, of course, music. It was also at
USC he met John Milius and
Randal Kleiser, both acclaimed directors
with whom he would work in the future. Even though Basil had already
composed music to John Milius' much talked
about Tag der Entscheidung (1978), his
real breakthrough came in 1982 when he composed the score to Milius'
epic fantasy movie,
Conan der Barbar (1982).
The powerful themes that Basil created for this movie opened the eyes
of the movie industry, as well as the public, and it is arguably one of
the best soundtracks of the 80s. Basil went on to make soundtracks for
such movies as: RoboCop (1987) (the
second Paul Verhoeven movie of
many for which he has composed, the first being 1985's
Flesh & Blood (1985)),
Der Ruf des Adlers (1989) (for which
he won an Emmy),
Farewell to the King - Sie nannten ihn Leroy (1989),
Jagd auf Roter Oktober (1990),
Free Willy - Ruf der Freiheit (1993), in
Paul Verhoeven's
Starship Troopers (1997) with
Casper Van Dien and
Denise Richards and
Les Misérables (1998).
