61. A Special Tribute to Composer Gerald Fried

As time goes by, we lose some of the amazingly talented people who worked with Stanley during his film career, and we recently lost composer/conductor, Gerald Fried, February 17th 2023 to be precise, at the grand old age of 95.

We spoke to Gerald in late 2018 when he was just 90 years young. He was one of the earliest collaborators of Stanley Kubrick, dating back to the very early 1950s.

Gerald Fried, a native New Yorker, had scored almost 300 films and television shows in a career spanning over 70 years. His movie scores include such varied titles as Machine Gun Kelly for Roger Corman, Jack Nicholson’s first feature film The Cry Baby Killer, The Killing of Sister George, Too Late The Hero & The Grisson Gang, all three for director Robert Aldrich.

His TV credits include some of the most popular shows being produced at the time including M Squad, Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, Gilligan’s Island, The Man From Uncle, Mission Impossible, Lost In Space, Police Woman and Star Trek!

He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Music with an Original Dramatic Score for the feature-length documentary Birds Do It, Bees Do it at the 1976 Academy Awards, up against several other notable composers with memorable scores. The Wind and the Lion from Jerry Goldsmith, Jack Nitzsche’s One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Bite The Bullet by Alex North, and the winner that year was……… John Williams for probably the most famous movie score of all time… JAWS. So Gerald was in great company that night.

Gerald also won an Emmy for his work with Quincy Jones on the ground-breaking mini-series Roots from 1977.

Having composed the scores for five of Stanley Kubrick's earliest films, Gerald is one of Kubrick’s most frequent collaborators.

Fried and Kubrick first worked together as a composer & director partnership, both at the age of just 23, on the short film Day of the Fight back in 1951, followed by four feature films, Fear & Desire, Killer’s Kiss, The Killing and Paths of Glory.

We released about 30 minutes of this interview back in January 2020, but now we present to you the entire three-hour interview in honour and respect of the late great, Mr. Gerald Fried.

Recorded: 11th and 13th November 2018

Hosted by Jason Furlong / Written by Stephen Rigg and Jason Furlong / Theme and original music written and performed by Jason Furlong / Produced and edited by Stephen Rigg

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