Basil Poledouris was a Greek-American composer for music for film and television, who created many musical masterpieces in his relatively short career. Poledouris broke into film music by scoring John Milius' film BIG WEDNESDAY in the late 1970s. In the early 1980s he quickly followed this up with a very romantic score for THE BLUE LAGOON.
But it was again John Milius who put Poledouris on the spot for his film CONAN THE BARBARIAN, for which Poledouris created a score of epic proportions that would forever be identified with his name.
After also doing the sequel, Poledouris however quickly saw a chance to create another masterpiece of a score for a Paul Verhoeven action film, ROBOCOP. He had just worked with Verhoeven before on FLESH & BLOOD and apparently found Verhoeven a stimulating partner to work with.
Verhoeven had wanted to make a historical action epic but somehow did not pull it off. But his first American film did allow Poledouris to make a real dramatic comeback.
In one of the last scores of the 1980s, THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, Poledouris showed he was also very skilfully combining synthesizer music with his orchestral musical counterparts.
After missing out the sequel, he opted to come back for ROBOCOP 3 but this new direction the film took, did not exactly prove succesful. Still the score was pretty damn good!
Poledouris got one more chance to work with Paul Verhoeven for STARSHIP TROOPERS, a very over the top science fiction film based on a book by Robert Heinlein, in which insectoid aliens attack the earth and the earth has to mobilize and send soldiers to stop the bugs.
In the 1990s he also scored the first two FREE WILLY movies as well as a new LASSIE movie. He passed away in 2006, aged 61 years old, due to cancer. His musical presence was only heard a short time but his voice is sorely missed. Rest in Peace, Basil.
Basil Poledouris (1945-2006)
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