Biography of Stu Phillips
from Wikipedia and Stu Who
Stu Phillips was born on September 9, 1929. He is an American composer of film scores and television-series theme music, conductor and record producer.
Phillips studied music at The High School of Music & Art in
New York City, New York, and at the Eastman School of Music in
Rochester, New York. While at Eastman, he began arranging music
for the Rochester Civic Orchestra.
In 1958, Phillips
began composing television and film scores. One of his first
scores was for Columbia's 1964 movie, Ride the Wild Surf. He
also founded Colpix Records and produced hits for Shelley
Fabares, Nina Simone, and The Skyliners.
At Capitol
Records Stu was the creator, producer and arranger of The Hollyridge Strings,
which at one time had three albums in the top 20 on the
Billboard chart.
In the
late 1960s and early 1970s, Phillips continued scoring films and
television series including music for the films Beyond the
Valley of the Dolls (1970), The Seven Minutes (1971) and the
television series The Monkees and Get Christie Love!.
In
1974, he began working at Universal Studios scoring television
series. During this time, he scored music for the television
series The Six Million Dollar Man, McCloud, and Battlestar
Galactica. His Battlestar Galactica theme was featured
prominently in the film Airplane II: The Sequel (1980). He also
composed music for the television series The Amazing Spider-Man
(which was for Charles Fries/Dan Goodman/Danchuck Productions)
during this time.
In the 1980s, Phillips left Universal
and began working at 20th Century Fox where he composed music
for the television series The Fall Guy and Automan.
Phillips has been semi-retired since the 1990s. Since that time,
he has appeared at fan conventions for Battlestar Galactica and
has attended cult-film screenings for the Beyond the Valley of
the Dolls.
In 2002, Phillips
published his autobiography Stu Who?: Forty Years of Navigating
the Minefields of the Music Business.
In 2006, he also
participated in a documentary film featured on the special
edition DVD re-release of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.
A fan of classical music, Phillips has also orchestrated
pieces by Ludwig van Beethoven and Sergei Rachmaninoff for
symphonic orchestra.
Phillips can be heard on
FaLaLaLaLa.com discussing the history of The Hollyridge Strings's Christmas album (2008).
Awards and nominations: Grammy Award
- Nominated: 1964 Best Instrumental Performance - Non Jazz, The Beatles Song Book (Hollyridge Strings)
- Nominated: 1979 Best Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or a Television Special, Battlestar Galactica
