Portrait of Jerry Goldsmith

Birthday profile

Jerry Goldsmith

Jerry Goldsmith, American composer and conductor (died 2004)

Born
February 10, 1929
Died
July 21, 2004
Zodiac sign
Aquarius
Birth year
1929

About Jerry Goldsmith

Jerrald King Goldsmith (February 10, 1929 – July 21, 2004) was an American composer, conductor and orchestrator with a career in film and television scoring that spanned 49 years and over 200 productions, between 1954 and 2003. He was considered one of film music's most innovative and influential composers. He was nominated for eighteen Academy Awards (winning in 1977 for The Omen), six Grammy Awards, five Primetime Emmy Awards, nine Golden Globe Awards, and four British Academy Film Awards. He composed scores for five films in the Star Trek franchise, three in The Omen franchise, and three in the Rambo franchise, as well as for films including Logan's Run, Planet of the Apes, Tora! Tora! Tora!, Patton, Papillon, Chinatown, Alien, Poltergeist, The Secret of NIMH, Medicine Man, Gremlins, Hoosiers, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Sleeping with the Enemy, Air Force One, L.A. Confidential, Mulan, Rudy and The Mummy. He also composed the current fanfare for the Universal Pictures logo, which debuted in The Lost World: Jurassic Park. He frequently collaborated with directors including Paul Verhoeven, Franklin J. Schaffner, Richard Fleischer, Fred Schepisi, Michael Crichton, Jack Smight, Gordon Douglas, J. Lee Thompson, Paul Wendkos, John Frankenheimer, and Joe Dante. Goldsmith's score led to him gaining his first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score, though he lost to fellow first-time nominee Maurice Jarre for his music to Lawrence of Arabia (also 1962). Goldsmith composed a score to The Stripper (1963), his first collaboration with director Franklin J. His scores for Seven Days in May and The Sand Pebbles also garnered Goldsmith his first two respective Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Original Score in 1965 and 1967. Goldsmith gained attention for the score of the post-apocalyptic science fiction film Planet of the Apes (1968), which was one of the first to be written entirely in an Avant garde style. He was nominated for eighteen Academy Awards, six Grammy Awards, five Primetime Emmy Awards, nine Golden Globe Awards, and four British Academy Film Awards.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Jerry Goldsmith timeline

  1. Goldsmith's score led to him gaining his first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score, though he lost to fellow first-time nominee Maurice Jarre for his music to Lawrence of Arabia (also 1962).
  2. Goldsmith composed a score to The Stripper (1963), his first collaboration with director Franklin J.
  3. His scores for Seven Days in May and The Sand Pebbles also garnered Goldsmith his first two respective Golden Globe Award nominations for Best Original Score in 1965 and 1967.
  4. Goldsmith gained attention for the score of the post-apocalyptic science fiction film Planet of the Apes (1968), which was one of the first to be written entirely in an Avant garde style.

The world when Jerry Goldsmith was born

Jerry Goldsmith was born in 1929. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1929

  • #1 song"Singin' in the Rain"
  • Top movieThe Broadway Melody (first Best Picture winner)
  • Best-selling bookA Farewell to Arms – Ernest Hemingway

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentFirst baseball All-Star Game proposed
  • Top headlineStock market crashes on Black Tuesday
  • Technology milestoneFirst Academy Awards ceremony held
  • Defining fadYo-yos
  • Notable inventionCar radio
  • World population2.10 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderHerbert Hoover
  • Sports championPhiladelphia Athletics (World Series)
  • U.S. population121.8M

1929 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Jerry Goldsmith's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19292026
Gas$0.21$3.45/gal
Average home$6,300$435,000
Average income$3,850$67,500
Movie ticket$0.25$11.95
Postage stamp$0.02$0.73
Population121.8M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, MusicBrainz, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.