Composer, arranger and pianist, he was a child prodigy who was already
a keyboard artist at three and a concert performer at six. A
self-taught orchestrator, he learned musical theory in the local public
library, and soon was arranging music for popular bandleaders including
Count Basie and Fred Waring. Coming to Hollywood in 1948, he studied
composition theory with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and by 1951 he was on the staff of the
Universal-International music department, where he remained until the
end of that decade, composing themes and scores for U-I's steady output
of youth-oriented monster and horror films, a genre he often effaced.
Later, at the beginning of the 1960s, he concentrated on television
music, until retiring in the mid-1960s.
