David Raksin

David Raksin was born in Philadelphia in 1912, the son of a musician who conducted for silent films. He played in dance bands as a teenager and studied at the University of Pennsylvania. His arranging work led to Hollywood in 1935, where he helped Charlie Chaplin turn his melodies into the score for Modern Times. Chaplin fired him at one point, then rehired him after hearing what he had done.

Raksin spent the following years working at Universal and 20th Century-Fox, writing music for many pictures, often without screen credit. Then came Laura (1944), Otto Preminger's sophisticated murder mystery. As the story goes, Raksin wrote its haunting main theme over a weekend, just after receiving a letter from his wife saying she was leaving him. Woven throughout the film, the melody conveys the detective's growing obsession with a woman he believes is dead. With lyrics later added by Johnny Mercer, "Laura" became one of the most recorded songs of the 20th century.

Raksin went on to score Forever Amber and The Bad and the Beautiful, both of which earned Oscar nominations, along with Force of Evil, Carrie and Separate Tables. He wrote more than a hundred film scores and many more for television.

He was also a respected teacher at the University of Southern California and an outspoken advocate for composers' rights, serving as president of the Composers and Lyricists Guild of America. He died in California in 2004.