Joel Goldsmith: Stargate, Star Trek, And Man’s Best Friend Composer Passes Away At 54
The world of science fiction is now a little less musical. Stargate and Star Trek composer Joel Goldsmith passed away on April 29, 2012 after a battle with cancer. He was 54 years old.
During his prolific career, Joel Goldsmith wrote music for 330 episodes throughout the sprawling Stargate family and was nominated three times for an Emmy. His credits include SG-1, Atlantis, and SGU, as well as two direct-to-video movies in 2009, Stargate: The Ark of Truth and Continuum. The Emmy noms came for his work on SG-1 in 1998 and twice for Atlantis—once for the theme in 2005, then again for the music in an individual episode of the series in 2006.
Born November 19, 1957, in Los Angeles, Joel Goldsmith definitely came from a musical gene pool. His mother, Sharon, was a singer, and his uncle, Michael Hennagin, was a prolific composer and renowned professor of music.
Joel Goldsmith’s father, Jerry Goldsmith, won an Oscar in 1977 for the score he wrote for Richard Donner’s son of the devil-themed horror film The Omen. The father-son duo worked together in 1996 when they collaborated on Star Trek: First Contact.
In addition to his work in Stargate universe, Joel Goldsmith worked on the 1990s version of The Outer Limits, Witchblade, and even Diagnosis Murder. In 2006 he scored the smash videogame Call of Duty 3. Though the bulk of his career was spent in television, Goldsmith got his start in horror and sci-fi films, like The Man With Two Brains, Laserblast, and Island of Blood.
Oh yeah, and Joel Goldsmith was also the composer on Man’s Best Friend. Remember that one, about the genetically enhanced Rottweiler that climbed trees and pissed acid? Being part of that movie alone reserves him a special place in my heart, but it is for his contributions to the genre that he will truly be remembered.
