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Earle Hagen
- Born 9 July 1919
Earle Hagen wrote "Harlem Nocturne" as a mood piece for radio early in his composing career. Taking up the trombone in his early teens, he began working professionally after high school, playing with Isham Jones, Benny Goodman, and Jimmy Dorsey. Like Ronald Reagan, he spent his war years working in the Army Air Corps' Radio and Film Unit in Santa Ana, California. After the war, he stayed in Hollywood and continued to work as a musician and arranger in the movie studios.
In the early 1950s, Lionel Newman hired Hagen for Twentieth Century Fox, and Hagen worked as a second-line composer until he hit the big time with the super-serious theme to "Perry Mason" and his happy-go-lucky whistling theme for "The Andy Griffith Show." He provided the theme and most of the soundtrack work on the Bill Cosby/Robert Culp series, "I Spy." Other Hagen TV themes include "The Mod Squad," "The Dick Van Dyke Show," "Gomer Pyle, USMC," and "That Girl." Although he scored a few movies, including "Man on a Tightrope" and "The New Interns," Hagen's greatest influence has been as an educator and mentor to other arrangers. He has written two well-respected texts, "Scoring for Films" (1971) and "Advanced Techniques for Film Scoring" (1990). Among Hagen's later work is the theme and much of the scores for the offbeat Norman Lear soap opera/comedy, "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman."
Recordings
- Recipes for Romance (with Herb Spencer), X Records LXA-1003
- I Only Have Eyes for You (with Herb Spencer), Vik LX-1000
- The Essence of Romance (with Herb Spencer), Liberty LRP-3063/LST-7063
- (with Lincoln Chase) The Explosive Lincoln Chase, Liberty LRP-3076
- I Spy, Capitol ST-2839
- I Spy, Warner Brothers WBS 1637
- The Andy Griffith Show, Capitol T1611
- The New Interns, Colpix SCP-473
- Nothing But the Best, Colpix SCP-477
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