I had the golden opportunity to sit down and talk with legendary composer and pioneering film-music teacher David Raksin shortly before his death in 2004. He immediately impressed me as a sweet, warm, and inviting man. Our time together was extremely limited; however, I will always cherish my memories of meeting with this film-music giant. Although he scored more than 100 films and numerous television shows, Raksin is most readily remembered as the composer of the haunting theme for the classic film “Laura” (1944), a theme that, with the addition of lyrics by Johnny Mercer, quickly became a jazz and pop standard. Among other classic films that hes cored are “Forever Amber” (1947), “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” (1947), “Force of Evil” (1948), “The Bad and the Beautiful” (1952), and the television series “Wagon Train” (1957) and “Ben Casey” (1961). As a professor of music at USC, Raksin pioneered the teaching of film-scoring as a discipline unto itself and greatly influenced generations of film composers who studied with him. When you were young, film music was just coming to life. What influenced you to become a film composer? Well, many things, including the fact that my father conducted for silent films. On Saturdays, I’d sit in the pit next to him while he conducted. It was a marvelous experience. It was a unique way of getting some real understanding of the power of music joined to film. People tell me that as a boy I spoke of writing music for films. Eventually, when the time came, I got my wish. Can you describe how your early career as a film composer unfolded? How did you get started, basically? I was working in New York when I got a call to come out to California, where I went to work with Alfred Newman. Actually, my boss was Charlie Chaplin, who was working on the music for “Modern Times”. He didn’t know how to notate music, how to write it down, and he didn’t know how to develop ideas – but he did have ideas – and my job was to work with him. Well, I didn’t seem to have the same idea of what my position was as he did in the beginning, so he fired me after about a week and a half. Al Newman got a look at the sketches I was making of Charlie’s tunes, and he said to Charlie, “Are you crazy!? I can’t let this guy go. You should see what he’s doing with the little melodies and things like that.” They asked me if I would come back. I said I only would if I could have an understanding with Charlie. So I had a meeting with Charlie, just the two of us. And I explained to him that I did not see myself as a stooge or anything like that. He listened to me very carefully and said, “Fine, let’s go.” So that began about four and a half months of very intensive work on the score. That’s how I got my start. A better start than that? There is no such thing. Let’s jump right to your memorable and beautiful score to “Laura”. When I went to work on “Laura”, I was living on a farm and my studio – a special room with a piano and stuff like that – was in a barn. In those days, to divert my mind from intense concentration on a score to the point where it was all-cerebral, I used to put a book of poems or a photograph or something like that on the piano. In this case, I put a letter that I had received on the piano. It was from my wife, who was then living in New York, working in a show. Iw as reading this thing and playing when, all of a sudden, I started off on this melody that later turned out to be ‘Laura’. It’s as simple as that. At the time, how was this music received? Judging from what I remember of those days, I think it was probably ahead of its time, a little bit different. How was your rapport with the directors or filmmakers? Oh, it was almost always very good. But some of them didn’t understand that I didn’t see myself as an extension of their own thinking. I had a mind of my own and I had a talent of my own, and I thought that my job was to make that available to them in the best way possible. That is what I endeavored to do. Sometimes we differed, but more often than not, we did not. Do today’s film composers differ much from film composers of the past? I think the best composers always do the same thing: They go look at the picture and they make up their minds what they need to do, and then they try to do that. We tried to do that. How do today’s films differ from those of the past? With some exceptions, I think that films today don’t really try to delve deeply into things. And today’s film music? We worried a lot about the innards of the music and how they related to the story and how they brought out various things in the story. I think people still try to do that. Today, people make a big deal of how different it is. I guess it is, but I don’t see it as an awful lot different. I think there’s a less probing sensitivity in the scores today. Part of that is because of the people who commission the scores and can pass on whether or not they work for their pictures. You’ve had the privilege of knowing some of the other great establishers of the art of film music, such as Max Steiner and Alfred Newman. How were your relationships with these composers? I worked with Al Newman a lot. Steiner wanted me to work with him, but I decided I didn’t want to do that because I figured I’d get buried in that and wind up with a career full of music by some other guy. But I was very friendly with both of them. We were very good friends, and he conducted a lot of my earlier scores. We all love a good story, and you must have a thousand of amusing Hollywood tales. Would you care to share one? I once was asked to come into a picture, quite a good film, by some friends of mine who were the producers. The director of this film was a talented guy, but he was one of those New York guys who had to make sure that you knew that you weren’t as good as you should be, in case you’re at risk of that. He said, “I don’t want one of those Hollywood scores. I’d like something more modern, like Wozzeck.” I said to myself, “My God, he didn’t say Wozzeck!? I’m in heaven!” So I said to him, “Why don’t you and your wife come out to my house? We’ll have dinner and we can talk away from the studio.” So he and his wife come out there – I had a farm in Northridge at the time. The ladies are off talking somewhere and he and I are standing in the living room. There’s some music playing on the phonograph and he and I are talking when he suddenly turns to me and asks, “What’s that crap you’ve got on the phonograph?” I said, “That’s Wozzeck!” What prompted you to stop composing for films? I didn’t really stop. The work just sort of flew away. After a while, I wasn’t working very much. I realized that my standing in the industry was not as great as it was in the past, because there were younger guys coming up, and that suited me just fine.