ATTACK! Profile: Lalo Schifrin
Composer & Supervisor

As one of the greatest living composers, Lalo Schifrin has blended his jazz-influence and obscured instrumentation into some of the most beloved and unique soundtracks of all time.

Argentinian in origin and coming from a gifted musical family he studied piano from age 6 with Enrique Barenboim, father of the Daniel Barenboim. He studied music theory at the Paris Conservatoire and played jazz in the city's nightclubs. Later he played piano for jazz bands such as Dizzy Gillespie's before moving into films.

Perhaps by coincidence or circumstance, Schifrin has made his biggest impact in the action-thriller genre by blending classical elements into popular music, Schifrin has practically created a modern classical genre of his own not far from jazz, latin or even synthesized progressive rock.

Lalo Schifrin has composed and/or supervised close to 200 films since the mid-1960's. In the pas decade he has been conducting music and touring some of the finest Opera Halls in the World.

Some of his most famous films include:
Mission Impossible
Dirty Harry
Cool Hand Luke
Bullitt
Coogan's Bluff
THX 1138
Enter the Dragon

Some of his popular TV themes include:
Mission Impossible
Planet of the Apes
Mannix

Some interesting trivia:

-Schifrin's working score for 1973's The Exorcist was rejected by the film's director William Friedkin. Schifrin had written six minutes of difficult and heavy music for the initial film trailer but audiences were reportedly too scared by the combination of sights and sounds. Warner Bros. executives told Friedkin to instruct Schifrin to tone it down with softer music, but Friedkin did not relay the message. Schifrin's final score was thrown out into the parking lot. Schifrin reported in an interview that working with Friedkin was the one of the most unpleasant experiences in his life.

-His song "Tar Sequence,from the music score for Cool Hand Luke (1967), was used for many years as the theme song for local "Eyewitness News" broadcasts on ABC-owned television stations (i.e. WABC-TV in New York, New York, USA and WLS-TV in Chicago, Illinois, USA).

-Bruce Lee personally chose him to score Enter the Dragon (1973). Upon their lunch meeting, Lee told him that he worked out to the soundtrack from "Mission: Impossible" (1966)."