Gerald Fried, Emmy-winning composer, dies

Gerald Fried

Gerald Fried, an Emmy-winning composer who had a big impact on spy television series, has died at 95. His death was announced on Twitter by Trek Long Island, a Star Trek convention organization.

Fried won an Emmy for the 1977 miniseries Roots, based on the book by Alex Haley. It was an enormous popular and critical hit, and Fried was a major contributor.

However, Fried was incredibly versatile. He could score slapstick comedy (the Sherwood Schwartz-produced comedies Gilligan’s Island and It’s About Time) as well as serious science fiction and adventure (Star Trek).

The composer frequently won assignments to score spy TV shows. Among them: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (starting in the second season into the early part of the fourth)  as well as Mission: Impossible.

With U.N.C.L.E., Fried became the show’s go-to composer. His first effort, the two-part Alexander the Greater Affair, was extremely energetic. Fried carried the composing burden for the show’s second and third seasons. That included providing the third-season arrangement of Jerry Goldsmith’s U.N.C.L.E. theme.

Fried said in a 2003 interview for the Archive of American Television that U.N.C.L.E. was a challenge.

“They didn’t have much money for an orchestra budget,” Fried said. “Sometimes you had to do an hour TV show with like six or seven musicians.” His solution was “using a lot of percussion” to generate a “full sound” for the audience.

In the show’s campy third season, Fried did a score for one episode (The Hot Number Affair with Sonny and Cher as guest stars) where the music was played by kazoos. He was asked about it in the Archive of American television interview and lit up. “You remembered,” he told the interviewer.

Gerald Fred’s title card for Part Two, Alexander the Greater Affair

Things took an abrupt turn in the fourth season. The new producer, Anthony Spinner, opted for a more serious tone.

Fried produced another arrangement of the theme but it was rejected. A Fried score for The Deadly Quest Affair also was rejected. He scored one more episode, The Test Tube Killer Affair, which sounded more serious than most of his third-season efforts.

Regardless, Fried ended up doing one more U.N.C.L.E. score for the 1983 television movie, The Return of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Fried also scored the Star Trek episode Amok Time, which involves a Vulcan mating ritual. Things get complicated and Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock get into a battle to the death.

Fried’s music was so memorable that others referenced it over the years, including the Jim Carrey film The Cable Guy. Carrey would actually “sing” Fried’s music.

Fried’s IMDB.COM ENTRY lists more than 100 composing credits, going back to the 1950s.

The composer’s break came with scoring a 1951 short documentary directed by Stanley Kubrick, Day of the Fight. It showed a day in the life of a boxer. Fried scored other Kubrick films including The Killing and Paths of Glory.

In the Archive of American Television interview, Fried recalled how he met Kubrick. According to the composer, the director said Fried was the only musician that Kubrick knew.

In their early collaborations, Kubrick deferred to Fried on music. As they worked more often, Kubrick asserted more control. Eventually, Fried said, there were “knockdown battles.” With Paths of Glory, “I had to justify every note.”

In 2014, Fried was one of the guests at The Golden Anniversary Affair, a fan event for the 50th anniversary of U.N.C.L.E. Fried was among those who watched musicians perform music from the series, including some of Fried’s compositions.