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Jerry Fielding, a three-time Oscar nominee, was one of Hollywood’s most daring and experimental film composers. His music often employed sophisticated compositional techniques, creating dense, richly dissonant orchestral textures sometimes infused with jazz elements. His film career was distinguished by lasting and fruitful collaborations with Sam Peckinpah, Michael Winner, and Clint Eastwood.
Born Joshua Feldman in Pittsburgh in 1922 to Russian immigrant parents, Fielding grew up in a household that loved music, though was not musically inclined. As a somewhat frail and homebound teenager, he drew early inspiration from Orson Welles' radio productions, notable for their innovative Bernard Herrmann scores. He was also captivated by the increasingly complex orchestrations of swing bands, which heavily incorporated classical music elements. Fielding joined Max Adkins’ studio, a respected theatrical music director who also taught Henry Mancini and Murray Gerson. After acquiring crucial arranging skills, he toured with prominent dance bands of the 1940s, eventually moving to Hollywood. There, his radio and television work included conducting and arranging for popular variety shows, including Groucho Marx’s.
During the rise of McCarthyism, Fielding, a self-declared outspoken liberal, became one of its many victims. His hiring of black musicians in his TV orchestra was unprecedented and drew criticism and threats. His progressive views attracted the attention of the FBI and HUAC. Fielding believed the investigators were more interested in getting him to implicate Groucho Marx as a "fellow traveler." He invoked the Fifth Amendment, which led to the collapse of his Hollywood career. Subsequently, he found refuge in Las Vegas, becoming musical director for stage shows featuring Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, Debbie Reynolds, Eddie Fisher, and others. He also began releasing pop and swing LPs like "Fielding’s Formula," "Sweet With A Beat," and "Hollywood Brass."
With the decline of McCarthyism in the early 1960s, Fielding returned to Hollywood. In 1962, at the recommendation of writer Dalton Trumbo, Otto Preminger hired him for the political drama Advise & Consent. This impressive debut score combined light orchestral lyricism with richer, almost ethereal textures, imbued with Fielding’s signature dark irony.
Eager to broaden his compositional skills, Fielding studied under the esteemed Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, who also taught Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams. He continued working in television, scoring shows like Mission: Impossible (1966) and Star Trek (1966). In 1967, he composed the score for Noon Wine, a television western directed by Sam Peckinpah, marking the start of a legendary but occasionally difficult partnership. Their breakthrough film, The Wild Bunch (1969), featured a score that captured the ruggedness and fading spirit of the Old West through a mix of lively action themes, Mexican folk melodies, and bittersweet dirges, all tinged with Fielding’s characteristic irony. This earned him his first Oscar nomination. His second came with Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs (1971), where the music, inspired by Stravinsky’s Histoire Du Soldat and performed by a large orchestra producing dense, yearning clusters, reflected both the characters' psychological struggles and the desolate Cornish setting.
Fielding also composed a poignant, haunting score for Peckinpah’s Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974). However, not all collaborations were smooth: his score for The Getaway (1972) was replaced by Quincy Jones’, and he withdrew from scoring Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) with Bob Dylan.
Fielding’s work with Michael Winner began in 1970 with Lawman (1971), featuring an epic score infused with jazz—a rarity for a western. He followed this with powerful, impressionistic music for Chato's Land (1972), The Mechanic (1972), and Scorpio (1973). A highlight was the gothic score for Winner’s The Nightcomers (1971), where Fielding indulged his passion for 19th-century baroque music, considering it among his best work. His final score for Winner was The Big Sleep (1978), which showcased a masterful synthesis of his diverse techniques.
For Clint Eastwood, Fielding composed the jazz-driven scores for The Enforcer (1976) and The Gauntlet (1977), perfectly complementing their gritty urban settings with performances by top jazz musicians. His third and final Oscar nomination came for Eastwood’s The Outlaw Josey Wales (1976).
Jerry Fielding was a determined artist who fought to have his unique musical voice heard in films. Not one to compromise, he often sacrificed high-profile opportunities by rejecting simpler, producer-friendly paths. These choices may have contributed to the toll on his health; from the mid-1970s onward, he suffered multiple heart attacks. In 1980, while working in Canada on Funeral Home, he died of a heart seizure at 57.
Fielding’s approach to film scoring was deeply humane. He avoided the conventional "mickey-mousing" technique of closely matching every on-screen action. Instead, his music sought to reflect and illuminate the inner motivations and emotions of characters with compassion, beauty, and sensitivity. Producer Gordon T. Dawson poignantly likened Fielding’s music to “a man in a green suit walking in a forest.”
Indeed, it remains so.
