By GottaLaff
I grew up with Earle Hagen's son, Deane, an extremely talented musician in his own right (He was the drummer in the Barbra Streisand movie "A Star is Born"). The Hagens lived around the corner from me, in a house later purchased by the Jackson 5 family, back when the brothers still sang together.
My best friend lived across the street from the Hagens, and we used to hang out in her front yard and watch celebrities arrive at an annual gala Earle threw.
Earle H. Hagen, who co-wrote the jazz classic "Harlem Nocturne" and composed memorable themes for "The Andy Griffith Show," "I Spy," "The Mod Squad" and other TV shows, has died. He was 88.Hagen, who is heard whistling the folksy tune for "The Andy Griffith Show," died Monday night at his home in Rancho Mirage, his wife, Laura, said Tuesday. He had been in ill health for several months.
During his long musical career, Hagen performed with the top bands of the swing era, composed for movies and television and wrote one of the first textbooks on movie composing.
He and Lionel Newman were nominated for an Academy Award for best music scoring for the 1960 Marilyn Monroe movie "Let's Make Love."
For television, he composed original music for more than 3,000 episodes, pilots and TV movies, including theme songs for "That Girl," "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C." [...]
He played trombone with Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey and arranged for and played with Ray Noble's orchestra.
He and Dick Rogers wrote "Harlem Nocturne" for Noble in 1939. It has been covered many times since and served as the theme music for "Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer" television series in 1984. [...]
After the war, he worked as a composer and orchestrator for 20th Century-Fox studios on dozens of movies, including another Monroe classic, "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes."
In the 1950s, he and Herbert Spencer formed an orchestra partnership that also wrote music for television, including scoring the Danny Thomas hit "Make Room for Daddy." [...]
After retiring from TV work in 1986, Hagen taught a workshop in film and television scoring. [...]
Besides his wife, Hagen is survived by his sons, Deane and James, both of Palm Desert...
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