Alexander Courage and Joseph Pevney, Two STAR TREK Greats, Have Passed....

About Alexander Courage:

By ROBERT JABLON

Alexander "Sandy" Courage, an Emmy-winning and Academy Award-nominated arranger, orchestrator and composer who created the otherworldly theme for the classic "Star Trek" TV show, has died. He was 88.

Courage died May 15 at the Sunrise assisted-living facility in Pacific Palisades, his stepdaughter Renata Pompelli of Los Angeles, said Thursday. He had been in poor health for three years.

Over a decades-long career, Courage collaborated on dozens of movies and orchestrated some of the greatest musicals of the 1950s and 1960s, including "My Fair Lady," "Hello, Dolly!" "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers," "Gigi," "Porgy and Bess" and "Fiddler on the Roof."

But his most famous work is undoubtedly the "Star Trek" theme, which he composed, arranged and conducted in a week in 1965.

"I have to confess to the world that I am not a science fiction fan," Courage said in an interview for the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation's Archive of American Television in 2000. "Never have been. I think it's just marvelous malarkey. ... So you write some, you hope, marvelous malarkey music that goes with it."

Courage said the tune, with its ringing fanfare, eerie soprano part and swooping orchestration, was inspired by an arrangement of the song "Beyond the Blue Horizon" he heard as a youngster.
"Little did I know when I wrote that first A-flat for the flute that it was going to go down in history, somehow," Courage said. "It's a very strange feeling."

Courage said he also mouthed the "whooshing" sound heard as the starship Enterprise zooms through the opening credits of the TV show.

"Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry later wrote lyrics to the tune, which were never sung on the show but entitled him to half the royalties, Courage said.

Among the many other projects Courage worked on was the 1987 TV special "Julie Andrews: The Sound of Christmas," for which he won an Emmy for musical direction.

He and Lionel Newman shared Academy Award nominations for their adapted scores for 1964's "The Pleasure Seekers" and 1967's "Doctor Dolittle."

A friend and colleague of movie composers John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith, he also provided the orchestration for such movies as "The Poseidon Adventure," "Jurassic Park," "Basic Instinct" and "The Mummy" and supplied arrangements for the Boston Pops while Williams was conductor in the 1980s and early 1990s.

For "Star Trek" he composed music for only a few episodes, in addition to the theme and the music for the pilot. But that theme was reprised in the TV sequel "Star Trek: The Next Generation" and in the "Star Trek" movies.

Courage was born Dec. 10, 1919, in Philadelphia and raised in New Jersey. After graduation from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., in 1941, Courage enlisted in the Army Air Corps.

After the war, he became a composer for CBS radio shows and then became an orchestrator and arranger at MGM.

Beginning in the 1960s he composed music for TV shows, including "The Waltons," "Lost in Space" and "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea," although the only themes he created were for "Star Trek" and "Judd For the Defense."


About Joseph Pevney:

By DENNIS McLELLAN, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer May 29, 2008

Joseph Pevney, a film and television director who directed some of the most popular episodes of the original "Star Trek" TV series in the late 1960s, has died. He was 96.

Pevney, a former Broadway actor who played supporting roles in several notable films noir in the late 1940s before directing movies such as "Man of a Thousand Faces" and "Tammy and the Bachelor," died May 18 of age-related causes at his home in Palm Desert, said his wife, Margo.


Prolific director

"The Trouble with Tribbles"

Focusing on television from the early 1960s to the mid-1980s, when he retired, Pevney directed episodes of numerous series such as "Wagon Train," "The Munsters," "The Fugitive," "Bonanza," "12 O'Clock High," "The Virginian," "Adam-12," "Marcus Welby, M.D.," "Emergency," "The Incredible Hulk," "Fantasy Island," "Medical Center" and "Trapper John, M.D."

But "Star Trek," the classic science-fiction series that ran on NBC from 1966 to 1969, was Pevney's most enduring television credit as a director and made him a familiar name to Trekkers.As has been noted on "Star Trek" fan sites since his death, Pevney directed 14 episodes of the original series, tying with the late Marc Daniels as the credited director of the most episodes.Pevney directed some of the top fan-favorite episodes, including "The City on the Edge of Forever," "Amok Time," "The Trouble With Tribbles" and "Journey to Babel."

"The first half of the second year of the show, when he was alternating with Marc Daniels, is regarded as the best part of the series," said Jeff Bond, author of "The Music of Star Trek" and editor of the magazine Geek Monthly. "That's when it hit its stride. There was more humor, it was more adventurous, and the tone, I think, was lighter."

Bond said Pevney directed "the first real comedy episode of the series, 'The Trouble With Tribbles,' which was a complete, all-out comedy about the ship sort of getting infested with a bunch of furry creatures. And he certainly worked on some of the strongest dramatic episodes."

"The City on the Edge of Forever," from a script by Harlan Ellison and guest-starring Joan Collins, "is considered to be the best episode of the original series," Bond said.

George Takei, who played Sulu on the series, recalled Pevney as being "very organized and authoritarian" as a director."He was very precise in what he wanted," Takei told The Times, "but he was very relaxed -- in fact, jovial -- in the way he directed. I enjoyed working with him."

Pevney's son, Jay, said his father "loved the series and enjoyed working with the actors and being part of the beginning of it. He was surprised at the longevity of it because it was not a popular series at the time; it hit its real popularity [in syndication] after it was over."

Born Sept. 15, 1911, in New York City, Pevney launched his more than 60-year show-business career in 1924 as a boy soprano in vaudeville.

After becoming an actor, he appeared on Broadway in the 1930s and '40s in plays such as "Battle Hymn," "The World We Make," "Native Son" and "Home of the Brave."

During World War II, he served in the Army Signal Corps and staged revues for troops in Europe.After the war, Pevney was part of actor Paul Muni's "Key Largo" troupe when he arrived in Los Angeles.

He made his film debut as the piano-playing killer in the 1946 film noir "Nocturne," starring George Raft."Joe's acting career when he came to Hollywood was confined exclusively to noir," said Alan K. Rode, a film noir expert who interviewed Pevney several times. "He carved out a kind of temporary niche of being the sidekick."Pevney appeared in "Thieves' Highway," "The Street With No Name" and "Body and Soul," the classic boxing film in which he played John Garfield's feisty pal Shorty Polaski.

"Joe told me he was more cut out to be a director rather than an actor," Rode said. "He liked staging and working with actors."

Pevney made his debut as a movie director with "Shakedown," a 1950 film noir with Howard Duff, Brian Donlevy and Lawrence Tierney.

"He made a cameo appearance at the end of the film, and that was the last time he appeared on the big screen," Rode said.

Pevney went on to direct more than 35 movies, most of them in the 1950s, including "Meet Danny Wilson," starring Frank Sinatra and Shelley Winters; "3 Ring Circus," starring Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis; "Female on the Beach," starring Joan Crawford and Jeff Chandler; and "Twilight for the Gods," starring Rock Hudson and Cyd Charisse.

At his peak at Universal-International in 1957, Pevney had three movies open simultaneously in Los Angeles theaters: "Man of a Thousand Faces," a biographical drama about silent film star Lon Chaney, starring James Cagney; "Tammy and the Bachelor," a comedy-romance starring Debbie Reynolds; and "The Midnight Story," a crime-drama starring Tony Curtis.

Pevney retired in 1985 and moved to Palm Desert several years later.His first wife, actress Mitzi Green, died in 1969; his second wife, Philippa, died in 1996; and his son, David, died in 1998.

In addition to Margo, his wife of six years, and his son Jay, Pevney is survived by his daughter, Jan Pevney Holt; his son, Joel; two grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.At his request, no services will be held.

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And Harvey Korman -- who I met and enjoyed when he and Tim Conway performed at the hospital where De and Carolyn Kelley stayed -- has also passed away. How many laughs he and Conway have given all of us across the years.

Rest in peace. Amazing entertainers (in their own professions), all...