Trivia: New York native Zach Galligan didn't rise to superstardom along with some of the other prominent teen actors of the 1980s, though he has developed a more than respectable cult following in the direct-to-video genre circuit, most of which stems from his breakout role in Gremlins (1984). Poised for success after Gremlins' surprise popularity, Galligan began appearing in a slew of television features, including the highly rated suicide drama Surviving (1985), opposite fellow newcomer Molly Ringwald, and PBS' The Prodigious Mr. William Hicks (1987), which featured Galligan in the title role as a turn-of-the-century prep-school troublemaker. Galligan returned for The Return of Hickey and Hickey and Company, and received critical nods for both performances. In 1990, the young actor reprised his role as Billy Peltzer for Gremlins 2: The New Batch, which, unlike the vast majority of horror film sequels, was received relatively well by genre fans and open-minded critics. Unfortunately, Galligan never quite gained back his momentum after the release of Gremlins 2, and he spent the '90s trying his luck in genres ranging from slapstick comedies to erotic dramas; despite small roles alongside more established actors, Galligan was never quite able to come into his own. Nevertheless, Galligan's television performances (including supporting roles on Star Trek: Voyager, Melrose Place, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, and 2003's feature-length sci-fi drama Momentum) have received a much warmer reception, and he is known among casting agents for his solid work.

Trivia: Oklahoma-born singer/composer Hoyt Axton was the son of Mae Boren Axton, the highly respected country-and-western artist who wrote Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel." Upholding family tradition, Axton has penned several hit songs for performers other than himself, from the Kingston Trio's "Greenback Dollar" to Ringo Starr's "The No No Song." Axton's film career until the mid 1980s was confined to soundtrack contributions, notably for the 1969 groundbreaker Easy Rider. Switching to film acting in the late 1970s, Axton has appeared in good ole boy character roles in such films as The Black Stallion (1979) and Gremlins (1984). Hoyt Axton also sang the theme song for the TV sitcom Flo (1980-81).

Trivia: Actress Frances Lee McCain began her career on Broadway, appearing in stage shows throughout the late '60s before transitioning to the screen with a number of TV guest-appearances, as well as roles in movies like Gremlins and Footloose. The '90s would bring supporting roles in many more movies, including Scream and Patch Adams. McCain remained active in theater, especially in the San Francisco area.

Trivia: After shooting to stardom during the '80s in a string of youth-orientated movies, former model Phoebe Cates hit her stride in the '90s as a featured player in ensemble films. Born Phoebe Belle Katz on July 16, 1963 in New York City, Cates is the daughter of television producer Joseph Cates (The $64,000 Question) and the niece of film director Gilbert Cates (1970's I Never Sang for My Father). Joan Crawford was her godmother. While growing up in Manhattan, Cates attended New York's prestigious Professional Children's School. An exceptional dancer, she studied with the School of American Ballet until a knee injury forced her to quit in 1977. At the suggestion of the family for which she babysat, she began modeling in teen magazines and commercials. A few years later, director Stuart Gillard saw Cates dancing with friends at New York's Studio 54 and offered her the lead role in his Blue Lagoon (1980) knock-off, Paradise (1982). She then gave a standout performance as Jennifer Jason Leigh's sexually mature best friend in Amy Heckerling's Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), before starring in Private School (1983). Besides appearing in the film's infamous "mooning" scene (during which the cast flashes the audience), Cates recorded two songs for Private School's soundtrack, "Just One Touch" and "How Do I Let You Know."In 1984, with her star on the rise, Cates portrayed a young actress bent on destroying her deadbeat mother in the notoriously tasteless television film Lace (1984). That same year, she signed on to play the love interest in Joe Dante's horror-comedy Gremlins. Written by Chris Columbus and produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment, the bizarre, special effects-laden film about a group of strange and violent creatures was a colossal success -- despite premiering only two weeks after Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and on the same day as Ghostbusters (1984). After returning for Lace 2 (1985), Cates appeared as Michael J. Fox's model wife in Bright Lights, Big City (1988) and as a young bride-to-be in the coming-of-age film Shag (1989).Cates began the '90s at a personal low, starring in the sequel to Gremlins, Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1991), and in Ate de Jong's disastrous Drop Dead Fred (1991). She quickly revived her career opposite Bridget Fonda, Eric Stoltz, and Tim Roth in the Generation X comedy Bodies, Rest & Motion (1993), before earning rave reviews for her performance as the mysterious title character in Princess Caraboo (1994). The film also starred Cates' husband, actor Kevin Kline. The actress appeared as herself in Scratch the Surface (1997), a documentary about teen fashion models in the '80s, and then opted to take a short break from show business in order to care for her children. After a four-year hiatus, Cates returned to the screen in The Anniversary Party (2001), an ensemble film co-written and co-directed by her friend and Fast Times at Ridgemont High co-star Jennifer Jason Leigh and actor Alan Cumming. Acting opposite Kline (who portrayed her fictional husband in the film), Cates played none other than an actress who has left show business to raise a family.In addition to her screen work, Cates has also appeared frequently on the stage. Her numerous theater credits include The Tenth Man at Lincoln Center, Much Ado About Nothing at the New York Shakespeare Festival, The Seagull and The Three Sisters at the La Jolla Playhouse, and Romeo and Juliet at the Goodman Theater.

Trivia: After eking out a modest living as a piano teacher in Alabama and Florida, Polly Holliday switched to acting, spending ten seasons with the Asolo State Theater in Sarasota. In 1973, Holliday headed for New York, where she was cast in Murray Schisgal's Broadway play All Over Town; her director was Dustin Hoffman. All Over Town led to the tiny but pivotal role as a testy secretary in the Dustin Hoffman-Robert Redford feature All the President's Men (1976)--which, in turn, led to Holliday's being cast as wise-cracking waitress Florence Jean "Flo" Castleberry in the TV sitcom Alice (1976-80). Rising to nationwide fame by virtue of her oft-repeated catchphrase "Kiss mah grits!", Holliday earned four Emmy nominations and one Golden Globe Award. In 1980, she was spun off into her own weekly series Flo, which lacked Alice's staying power and was cancelled after a single season. She went on to briefly replace Eileen Brennan on TV's Private Benjamin (1983), and to play Captain Betty in the pilot episode of Stir Crazy (1985). Her film roles of the 1980s included Gremlins (1984), in which she was eminently hissable as Margaret Hamilton clone Mrs. Deagle. Polly Holliday's more recent work has largely been confined to the Broadway stage; in 1989, she received a Tony nomination for her portrayal of Sister Woman in a revival of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Trivia: A onetime lumberjack, Scott Brady distinguished himself as a Navy boxing champion during the war. After VJ Day, Brady took drama classes, appearing in his first film, Canon City, in 1948. Usually assigned rough-and-tumble roles (many villainous in nature), Brady exhibited a normally untapped comic prowess in the 1952 film The Model and the Marriage Broker. He continued taking lead roles in cheap westerns, horror films and science-fiction pictures into the 1960s, occasionally surfacing in "A" films like Marooned (1969) and Gremlins (1985, his last film). In 1959, Brady starred in a syndicated western series, Shotgun Slade, which allowed him the opportunity to act opposite several of his non-showbiz idols, including war hero Pappy Boyington and athlete Elroy "Crazylegs" Hirsch; he also had a recurring role in the 1970s anthology Police Story. Scott Brady is the younger brother of Lawrence Tierney, an actor best known for his gangster portrayals.

Trivia: African American character actor Glynn R. Turman was first introduced to the general public as Lew Miles, teen-aged son of Dr. Harry Miles (Percy Rodrigues) and his wife, Alma (Ruby Dee), during the 1968-1969 season of the prime-time TV soap opera Peyton Place. Turman went on to star as Chicago high schooler Leroy "Preach" Jackson in the 1975 film sleeper Cooley High. Settling into character roles in the 1980s, Turman was most often seen as judges, military officers, police detectives, and well-to-do patriarches. A departure from these "establishment" assignments was Turman's star turn in the 1981 TV-movie Thornwell, in which he portrayed real-life soldier James Thornwell, who accused the U.S. Army of subjecting him to illegal mind-controlling drugs. Turman's weekly series roles have included Secretary of State LaRue Hawkes in 1985's Hail to the Chief, and Colonel Bradford Taylor (aka "Dr. War") in the popular Cosby Show spin-off A Different World (1988-1993); he also appeared in the 1983 pilot episode of Manimal as Ty Earl, a role essayed by Michael D. Roberts in the series proper. In the 2000s, Turman played the memorable role of fictional Baltimore mayor Clarence V. Royce on the critically acclaimed HBO series The Wire. Also on HBO, he appeared in a few episodes of the psychotherapy drama In Treatment, winning an Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his role as the tough, strict father of Blair Underwood's troubled fighter pilot. In the years to come, Turman would remain active on screen, appearing on shows like The Defenders and House of Lies.

Trivia: Large and muscular at an early age, American actor Dick Miller entered the Navy during World War II while still a teenager, distinguishing himself as a boxer. He attended CCNY, Columbia University and New York University, supporting himself with semi-pro football jobs, radio DJ gigs and as a psychological assistant at Bellevue. At age 22, he was host of a Manhattan-based TV chat show, Midnight Snack. Stage and movie work followed, and Miller joined the stock company/entourage of low-budget auteur Roger Corman. His first great Corman role was as the hyperthyroid salesman in Not of this Earth (1956); a handful of rock-and-roll quickies followed before Miller received his first sci-fi lead in War of the Satellites (1958). In Corman's Bucket of Blood (1959), Miller originated the role of Walter Paisley, the nebbishy sociopath who "creates" avant-garde sculpture by murdering his subjects and dipping them in plaster. He was then cast in the immortal Little Shop of Horrors (1960); Miller not only makes a terrific entrance by buying a bouquet of flowers and then eating them, but also narrates the picture. Miller stayed with Corman into the 1970s, at which time the director was in charge of New World Pictures. Seldom making a liveable income in films, Miller remained an unknown entity so far as the "big" studios were concerned -- but his teenaged fans were legion, and he was besieged on the streets and in public places for autographs. When the adolescent science-fiction fans of the 1950s became the directors of the 1980s, Miller began receiving some of the best roles of his career. In Joe Dante's Gremlins (1984), Miller was paired with his Little Shop costar Jackie Joseph, as a rural couple whose house is bulldozed by a group of hostile gremlins. Miller and Joseph returned in the sequel Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1989), in which the actor heroically helped squash the gremlins' invasion of New York. Miller's most Pirandellian role was as the "decency league" activist in Matinee (1993) who is actually an actor in the employ of William Castle-like showman John Goodman. Directed again by longtime Miller fan Dante, Matinee contains a wonderful "in" joke wherein Miller is identified as a fraud via his photograph in a Famous Monsters of Filmland-type fanzine -- the very sort of publication which canonized Miller throughout the 1970s.

Trivia: Kooky, chipper comic actress Jackie Joseph was a chorus dancer when she gained prominence in The Billy Barnes Revue, in which she appeared with her future husband Ken Berry. Not long afterward, Joseph was hired as Los Angeles' first TV weather girl. In films at least since 1955's Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki, Joseph's most fondly remembered screen role was pea-brained Audrey Fulquard in the original Little Shop of Horrors (1960). A prolific TV actress, Joseph was a comedy-ensemble player on the first Bob Newhart Show (1961-62) and played dizzy secretary Jackie Parker during the final 1972-73 season of The Doris Day Show. She briefly put her acting career on the back burner in the 1970s to become an LA TV host and tireless animal activist. After her costly, traumatic divorce from Ken Berry, Joseph organized L.A.D.I.E.S., a support group for ex-wives of celebrities. Jackie Joseph resumed her film activities in the 1980s; she was reunited with her Little Shop of Horrors co-star Dick Miller as the ill-fated Futtermans in Gremlins (1984) and Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1989).

Trivia: The son of actors Harry Carey and Olive Golden, Harry Carey Jr. never answered to "Harry" or "Junior"; to his friends, family and film buffs, he was always "Dobe" Carey. Raised on his father's California ranch, the younger Carey spent his first six adult years in the Navy. While it is commonly assumed that he made his film debut under the direction of his dad's longtime friend John Ford, Carey in fact was first seen in a fleeting bit in 1946's Rolling Home, directed by William Berke. It wasn't until his third film, Three Godfathers (dedicated to the memory of his father) that Carey worked with Ford. Honoring his promise to Harry Sr. that he'd "look after" Dobe, Ford saw to it that the younger Carey was given a starring assignment (along with another of the director's proteges, Ben Johnson), in Wagonmaster (1950). Though he handled this assignment nicely, exuding an appealing earnest boyishness, Carey wasn't quite ready for stardom so far as the Hollywood "higher-ups" were concerned, so he settled for supporting roles, mostly in westerns. John Ford continued to use Carey whenever possible; in 1955's The Long Gray Line, the actor has a few brief scenes as West Point undergraduate Dwight D. Eisenhower. Carey was also featured on the "Spin and Marty" segments of Walt Disney's daily TVer The Mickey Mouse Club (1955-59). In later years, Carey's weather-beaten face was seen in choice character assignments in films ranging from The Whales of August (1987) to Back to the Future III (1990); he was also hired by such John Ford aficionados as Peter Bogdanovich, who cast Carey as an old wrangler named Dobie (what else?) in Nickelodeon (1976), and as an ageing bike-gang member named Red in Mask (1985). In 1994, Harry Carey Jr. published his autobiography, Company of Heroes. Carey died of natural causes at age 91 in late December 2012.

Trivia: A professional actor from the age of three, Corey Feldman was kept busy early on with innumerable TV commercials and voice-overs. Feldman's first regular television work was a recurring role in Mork and Mindy (1978-1982), followed by the part of Regi Tower in the weekly sitcom version of The Bad News Bears (1979). He made his earliest film appearance as the inquisitive kid in the museum in Time After Time (1979). In the early '80s, Feldman showed up in several episodes of the syndicated Madame's Place (1982) and played precocious-brat roles in such fantasy flicks as Gremlins (1984) and The Goonies (1985). During this period, he also provided the voice of the Young Copper in the Disney animated feature The Fox and the Hound (1980). His breakthrough role, at age 14, was as the battered, bespectacled small-town hell-raiser Teddy Duchamp in Rob Reiner's Stand by Me (1986). Feldman's acting career then went into decline, leaving him with few professional choices outside of minor roles in features such as Maverick (1994) and leads in direct-to-video movies. His most successful post-Stand by Me venture was as the voice of Donatello in the first two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies. In many of his latter-day efforts, Feldman co-starred with his offscreen best friend Corey Haim, another youthful performer.

Trivia: Following his training at the North Carolina School of the Arts, actor Judge Reinhold worked in regional repertory, dinner theaters, and "outdoor" dramas. He gained prominence in TV roles as gawky teenagers, notably the lead in the syndicated Capital Cities Special A Step Too Slow. In films from 1979, Reinhold's first major role was high schooler Brad in Fast Times at Ridgemont High. He hit his stride in 1984, playing the nice-guy detective sent to trail Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop (1984). Though he has proven a convincing villain when the need has arisen, Judge Reinhold has thrived in parts calling for decency and dependency. Reinhold's career slowed down a bit during the '90s and in the early part of the decade he seemed destined to be relegated to B-movies and television films such as Four Eyes and Six Guns (1993), but in 1994, he appeared in two major features, Beverly Hills Cop III and The Santa Clause.

Trivia: Jonathan Banks began his film career in the sort of roles described by character actor Frank Faylen as "sneezers." For example: if you sneezed, you'd miss Banks' microscopic part in 1980's Stir Crazy. He was more visible in such roles as the hitchhiker in the 1982 biopic Frances and Algren in the 1983 seriocomedy 48 Hours. On television, Jonathan Banks was cast as the scurrilous extraterrestrial Commander Kroll in Otherworld (1985) and as Frank McPike, Ken Wahl's choleric boss, in Wiseguy (1987). Banks would continue to appear in several more films over the coming years, like Dark Blue and Reign Over Me, as well as TV shows like Breaking Bad.

Trivia: The son of a clergyman, round-faced character actor Edward Andrews took to the stage at age twelve. He made his Broadway debut in 1935's How Beautiful With Shoes; three years later he co-starred in the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Time of Your Life. Sporting spectacles from the early 1950s onward, Andrews was ideally cast as pompous, overly ambitious military officers, politicians and attorneys. His screen persona was malleable enough to allow for villainy (he played a viciously racist small-town politico in his first film, 1955's The Phenix City Story), though he preferred comedy, taking pride in a particular "finger-waggling" gesture of his that always resulted in loud audience laughter. In 1964, he co-starred with Kathy Nolan in the distaff McHale's Navy rip-off TV sitcom Broadside. Edward Andrews joined several fellow acting veterans in Gremlins (1985), his last film.

Trivia: A cel washer for Ub Iwerks at Celebrity Pictures, Chuck Jones joined the Warner Bros. animation unit in 1933, and after writing and animating numerous cartoons, became a director of the Merrie Melodies series in 1938 with The Night Watchman. Over the next two decades he established himself as perhaps America's greatest maker of cartoons -- a master at creating slapstick comedy who also had a special fondness for sudden moments of sophisticated repartee or subtle character expression. Working regularly with writer Michael Maltese, Jones brought new heights to Warners' greatest characters, particularly Daffy Duck (The Scarlet Pumpernickel, Duck Dodgers In The 24-1/2 Century, Duck Amuck) and Bugs Bunny (Hair-Raising Hare, Rabbit Fire, What's Opera, Doc?); he also created such beloved figures as the Road Runner and the Coyote (Fast and Furry-ous), Pepe Le Pew (For Scent-Imental Reasons), and the Three Bears (A Bear for Punishment). Jones further distinguished himself with numerous outstanding one-shot cartoons, including The Dover Boys, Feed the Kitty, and his classic, the singing-frog morality tale One Froggy Evening. In the mid-1960s he made several Tom & Jerry cartoons at MGM. More impressive was his work in the animated feature The Phantom Tollbooth (1969), co-directed by Abe Levitow; and his television adaptations of Rudyard Kipling's (Rikki-Tikki-Tavi (1975)) and Dr. Seuss' (How The Grinch Stole Christmas (1965)). In 1979 Jones created linking animation scenes for a feature-length reissue anthology of his Warners cartoons, The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie (aka The Great American Chase). Through the 1990s, he provided animated sequences for Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) and Mrs. Doubtfire (1993).

Trivia: American actor John C. Becher began his professional career in the military during WW II where he was assigned to teach actors how to survive USO performances in combat zones. Among his students were Melvyn Douglas and Red Skelton. Prior to that, Becher trained at Milwaukee State Teachers College and at the Goodman Theater in Chicago. Following his military stint, he began appearing in New York theaters. This led him to act on television and finally in films.

Trivia: Western film star Harry Carey was the Eastern-born son of a Bronx judge. Carey's love and understanding of horses and horsemanship was gleaned from watching the activities of New York's mounted policemen of the 1880s. He worked briefly as an actor in stock, then studied law until a bout of pneumonia forced him to quit the job that was paying for his education. He reactivated his theatrical career in 1904 by touring the provinces in Montana, a play he wrote himself. In 1911, Carey signed with the Bronx-based Biograph film company, playing villain roles for pioneer director D. W. Griffith. Though only in his mid-30s, Carey's face had already taken on its familiar creased, weatherbeaten look; it was an ideal face for westerns, as Carey discovered when he signed with Hollywood's Fox Studios. Under the guidance of fledgling director John Ford, Carey made 26 features and two-reelers in the role of hard-riding frontiersman Cheyenne Harry. Throughout the 1920s, Carey remained an audience favorite, supplementing his acting income with occasional scripting, producing and co-directing assignments. At the dawn of the talkie era, Carey had been around so long that he was considered an old-timer, and had resigned himself to playing supporting parts. His starring career was revitalized by the 1931 jungle epic Trader Horn, in which he appeared with his wife Olive Golden. While he still accepted secondary roles in "A" features (he earned an Oscar nomination for his performance as the Vice President in Frank Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington [1939]), Carey remained in demand during the 1930s as a leading player, notably in the autumnal 1936 western The Last Outlaw and the rugged 1932 serial Last of the Mohicans. In 1940, Carey made his belated Broadway debut in Heavenly Express, following this engagement with appearances in Ah, Wilderness (1944) and But Not Goodbye (1944). By the early 1940s, Carey's craggy face had taken on Mount Rushmore dimensions; his was the archetypal "American" countenance, a fact that director Alfred Hitchcock hoped to exploit. Hitchcock wanted to cast Carey against type as a Nazi ringleader in 1942's Saboteur, only to have these plans vetoed by Mrs. Carey, who insisted that her husband's fans would never accept such a radical deviation from his image. Though Carey and director John Ford never worked together in the 1930s and 1940s, Ford acknowledged his indebtedness to the veteran actor by frequently casting Harry Carey Jr. (born 1921), a personable performer in his own right, in important screen roles. When Carey Sr. died in 1948, Ford dedicated his film Three Godfathers to Harry's memory. A more personal tribute to Harry Carey Sr. was offered by his longtime friend John Wayne; in the very last shot of 1955's The Searchers, Wayne imitated a distinctive hand gesture that Harry Carey had virtually patented in his own screen work.

Trivia: A kohl-eyed actor who has oozed a steady stream of low-key testosterone through a series of films that include Dazed and Confused (1993), A Time to Kill (1996), and The Limey (1999), Nicky Katt has brought life to a stable of idiosyncratic, often dysfunctional characters that have established him as one of the more adventurous young performers in Hollywood. A former child actor who first worked on shows ranging from V to Father Murphy, Katt got his adult breakthrough in Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused, a film that also helped to launch the careers of such castmates as Parker Posey, Matthew McConaughey, and Joey Lauren Adams. He went on to do prolific supporting work, showing up to particularly memorable effect as a one-armed convenience store clerk in Gregg Araki's The Doom Generation (1995), as a belligerent redneck in Joel Schumacher's A Time to Kill (1996), and as Renee Zellweger's ambitious attorney boyfriend in One True Thing (1998). One of his most memorable roles came courtesy of Steven Soderbergh's The Limey, which featured Katt as a dreadlocked, sociopathic hitman whose running (and largely improvised) commentaries on various passersby provided some of the film's most unnerving comic moments. Although he has been seen mainly in a supporting capacity, Katt has also done notable lead work, particularly in Linklater's SubUrbia (1997), in which he managed to stand out from a talented ensemble cast with his portrayal of an alcoholic and xenophobic ex-Air Force recruit. The actor also starred in and executive produced Adam Goldberg's Scotch and Milk (1998), an acclaimed post-noir drama that featured him as one of a group of aimless friends skulking and posing their way around Los Angeles. With a growing list of credits and further roles in such well-received films as Boiler Room (2000), which cast him as a money-grubbing broker, Katt began the 21st century on a very promising note. With roles in such high-profile releases as Insomnia and director Steven Soderbergh's Full Frontal (both 2002), Katt continued to hold that note, all the while maintaining a growing fan base with his role as geology teacher Harry Senate on the popular evening drama Boston Public.He continued to work steadily in a variety of projects including the indie I Love Your Work, doing a cameo for Richard Linklater in School of Rock, Planet Terror, and appearing opposite Jodie Foster in the vigilante drama The Brave One.

Trivia: An extraordinarily prolific composer whose productivity and versatility rank him with the likes of Ennio Morricone, Jerry Goldsmith scored well over 200 films and television programs over a career spanning nearly half a century. Goldsmith's music, which has been used for just about every imaginable film and television genre, is known in part for the composer's use of bass drums and deliberately discordant "stings" during action or suspense sequences. These stylistic trademarks were put to use with great success in 1997, with Goldsmith's score for L.A. Confidential, for which he garnered Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations, as well as a new generation of fans.A native of Los Angeles, where he was born on February 10, 1929, Goldsmith received classical training in piano and composition before studying film composition with Hollywood veteran Miklos Rozsa at the University of California. Much of Rozsa's stylistic influence was to stay with Goldsmith during his subsequent TV and radio work. After college, the young composer got a job with CBS Television's music department. He started out in the bottom ranks, working as a clerk typist, but soon was given the opportunity to put his talents to work. After writing music for various CBS radio shows, Goldsmith started scoring for television, providing music for shows like Gunsmoke, Perry Mason, Have Gun Will Travel, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., and perhaps most memorably, The Twilight Zone.It was also during the 1950s that Goldsmith began composing for film: he made his uncredited debut with Don't Bother to Knock, a 1952 psychological drama starring Marilyn Monroe. The 1957 Western Black Patch was another early effort, done during Goldsmith's last years with CBS. In 1960, he was hired by legendary film composer Alfred Newman to work at Revue Studios and it was there that Goldsmith began one of the most productive stages of his career. Scoring his first major feature in 1962, Lonely Are the Brave, Goldsmith spent the rest of the decade working at an amazingly rapid pace: at the height of his productivity, he was estimated to write about six scores a week. Some highlights of this period include his music for Freud (a 1962 film that garnered Goldsmith his first Best Score Oscar nomination), The List of Adrian Messenger (1963), Stagecoach (1966), and Planet of the Apes (1968), the last of which he composed while wearing a monkey mask (and secured his third Best Score Oscar nomination for his efforts).In addition to endless employment opportunities, the following decade brought further critical acclaim and recognition for the composer. Supplying scores for no less than 50 films, Goldsmith received Best Score Academy Award nominations for six, including Patton (1970), the 1973 Steve McQueen/Dustin Hoffman action drama Papillon, Roman Polanski's classic film noir potboiler Chinatown (1974), and The Omen, a 1976 horror classic that netted Goldsmith an Academy Award. He also further endeared himself to sci-fi enthusiasts everywhere by composing music for Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) and Alien (also 1979).During the 1980s and 1990s, Goldsmith continued to work steadily, scoring at least two major films a year. Some of his better-known work included Poltergeist (1982), Gremlins (1984), the Rambo series, Total Recall (1990), Basic Instinct (1992), and L.A. Confidential. His work on the last film earned him particular acclaim: in addition to netting him his 17th Oscar nomination, the score placed Goldsmith on many music critics' "Year's Ten Best" lists and gave him recognition among a new generation of fans. The following year, he earned another Oscar nomination, for his score for Disney's animated Mulan, and continued to work prolifically. After scoring three other films that same year, Goldsmith provided the music for The Mummy in 1999, ably demonstrating that age had not slowed him down in the least. After ushering in the new millenium with scores for such features as Hollow Man, Along Came a Spider, The Sum of All Fears, and Looney Tunes: Back in Action, the aging composer's difficult struggle with cancer made it difficult to keep up the near feverish work pace that had seemingly defined his career. On July 21, 2004, mere months after celebrating all things Hollywood by providing the score for the 76th Annual Academy Awards, Goldsmith finally succumbed to the devastating effects of cancer. He was 75.