Earle Hagen - Archive Interview Part 10 of 10 - OOS linked
In this final segment of the Archive of American Television interview, composer Earle Hagen reflects on his extensive career in television music, offering advice to aspiring composers, discussing the impact of technology on the craft, and recounting personal highlights such as winning an Emmy, scoring iconic series like I Spy, and teaching. He quantifies his output at roughly 3,000 television episodes, describing the long‑run nature of shows like The Danny Thomas Show and The Mod Squad. Hagen provides vivid assessments of a wide range of industry figures—including Alfred Newman, Ray Noble, Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, Kenny Johnson, Jerry Goldsmith, Hugo Friedhofer, Quincy Jones, Mike Post, John Williams, Lalo Schifrin, Henry Mancini, John Barry, Carl Brandt, Herb Spencer, Billy May, Sheldon Leonard, Danny Thomas, and his wife Lou—highlighting their personalities, professional strengths, and his personal interactions with them. He shares anecdotes such as a late‑night call from Quincy Jones about Indian music, a rapid‑fire arranging session with Billy May, and the collaborative dynamics with his music editor Kenny Johnson. Hagen also describes several photographs from recording sessions and personal trips that capture moments of his career and friendships. Throughout, he emphasizes the importance of understanding why music works, maintaining professionalism, and being remembered as a reliable, creative craftsman.
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No, I've seen pictures of myself.
You've taught a lot of students over the years. I'm wondering, what kind of advice would you give to an aspiring composer in film and television today?
I would advise him to learn his craft. I would advise him to serve an apprenticeship as an orchestrator for a working composer, which gives him hands-on experience. And sometimes puts him in contact with people who may refer him on. I think it's a good way to break into business.
Do you think technology has been a good thing or a bad thing, in terms of its place in music-making and television?
Well, I think that depends upon what kind of technology you're talking about. The computerized programs where you can do things almost instantaneously that we had to do by hand, like figuring out the mechanics and so forth. I think those are wonderful, providing the composer who's using it understands why it works. And I never used to— well, when somebody would come up who was interested in the class and look at the score when I was conducting, Conducting it on a break or whatever, and he'd say, yeah, I wanna see how you did that. And I'd say, that's not the question. The question is why. Why did I do that in relationship to the picture? Why did you do it? Do you have a mechanical aid necessary that will allow you to do things instantly that you couldn't do before? Great. Now you know how it works. Do you know why it works? Do you know how it protects you? contains the film, so that if that thing breaks down, you're not dead in the water with an orchestra sitting there. So the training, I think, should be on why things work, why film ideas work, why music works in certain situations, why silence works, why the mechanics work. If you know how to— if you know why they work, you can figure out how to make them work.
Would you say that there were one or two or several highlights of your career, and if so, what would they be?
I think winning an Emmy was a highlight. I'd been nominated a few times, and it was a highlight because in 1967, the Academy was like a 2-hour show, and you were being awarded recognition by your peers. It wasn't a technical award. It was a creative award. And today, it seems to be a technical award. You have a sound effects award and 15 people come up and get the same copy of an Emmy that I got for a single category. I think it's been watered down. And to me, it was a highlight moment of my life to be recognized. By people who I have a lot of respect for. I think working shows like I Spy were a highlight because you had the opportunity to do something, to do something creative, something daring, to take a different approach. And at the same time, they sharpen your ability to work with film. Those are highlights for me. And teaching was a highlight.
How would you like to be remembered?
That's a tough one. I would like to be remembered as a, as a man who was capable and professional in his work, who did good work, who never sluffed a job, and who created some things that were interesting and perhaps memorable to people.
How much television did you actually score? Do you have any idea?
It's close to 3,000 shows, Jonathan, the last time I counted them up because you tend to forget that I never did an isolated episode. I did a couple of times, I helped Lionel out on— I forgot the name of the show that was—
Something at Fox.
It was the monkey, Planet of the Apes, when they turned it into a series. Every now and then he'd get backed up and I'd go do a show for him. I also did stuff like Dobie Gillis for Lionel. You know, that's a hard question for me to answer.
But 3,000 shows.
Yes, because Danny Thomas alone was on 11 years. And in those days we did 39 shows, 7 of which were repeats, 32 shows, 7 repeats. And then they replaced the summer show. So we accumulated a lot of shows. There were over 400 or 500 Danny Thomas shows. And Griffith was on 8 years. Van Dyke was 5 years. Gomer Pyle was 5 years. Marlowe was 5 years. The Mod Squad was 5 years. Do you ever— They were all long, long shows, you know.
Do you ever think back and say, how could I possibly have written that much music?
I try not to do that. That'll make you tired.
I want to run some names past you, and if you have any final thoughts or anecdotes about some of these people that you knew or worked with, I'd love to hear what you have to say. Alfred Newman.
Al Newman was a giant in the industry. He was a wonderful composer, and he was a wonderful musical director. That, that's a category all by itself because we did shows for which he had great respect. When Alfred Newman did South Pacific, it was done in the style of the theater, but it was amplified by the ability of film. The same way with Flower Drum Song, the same way with Carousel. He was, he was a marvelous musical director as well as being a great talent. And I thought he was a He was the epitome of a top-notch executive along with it, which is a rare mix so far as I'm concerned.
Ray Noble.
Ray was a British piano player with a great sense of humor, very dry, very aloof. He was the kind of person you'd never get to know. I worked for him a couple of years and he was always very friendly, but he was one of the people that you felt like you If he never saw you again, that'd be okay. And pretty soon, if you never saw him again, that would be okay too. Not missed, but when you're with him, he was very likable and a good musician.
Benny Goodman.
Benny was a very quiet man. I don't think I ever had 15 words with him in 3 months. He was penurious. We used to call him first in the cab, first out. Tight with a buck, great player, murderer on woodwinds but easy on brass, and I enjoyed working with him. As I say, he was, he was not somebody that you would spend a lot of time talking with.
Tommy Dorsey.
As a trombone player, the epitome of all the trombone players. He was a great talent. When he was drunk, he was a beast. When he was sober, he was great, and he was a wonderful player. Tough man, very tough. Not on the band so much as just in associations. He was certainly a contributor to the pop music field of that particular time. He was a giant.
Duke Ellington?
Ellington is more or less of an unknown character to people. In the world I was in, even in the band business, because he predated me. He is credited with some wonderful pieces. He was an innovator up to a point. I love to listen to his band, more so because of the individual players than the aggregate effect. And I think he's a part of Americana.
Kenny Johnson.
Ken Johnson? Probably the best music editor that ever lived. Kenny has great qualities. He came to the class. He said, I want to go to your class. I said, why? He said, because I want to learn how a composer thinks, because it's important to me when I make a cue sheet that I know what he's looking for, so that I know what I'm looking for. And he was the best music editor, as far as I'm concerned, of anybody in the business. Very knowledgeable to the point where if I wanted listesso click tracks where the tempo varied and so forth, I could just make him an 8th note sheet. He didn't read music, but he could read what I was doing. And I had never worked with anybody who was as cooperative, who was there when you needed him, and who was absolutely the best of all possible people to work with. He was great— is great, I should say.
Did he continue with you until the time you retired?
Yes. Well, no, he didn't continue on I lost him on Dukes of Hazzard and on Mike Hammer because those were in-house shows. One was done by Columbia, the other was done, I think, by Warner Brothers. So they had their own cutters and I couldn't bring him in on it.
Jerry Goldsmith.
Great composer, I think. Great film composer. One of a cadre of outstanding film composers who cut their teeth in television. Started in television, learned his craft, went on into the movies, and has become a present-day Max Steiner, I think.
Hugo Friedhoffer.
One of the best writers of all time. In my mind, the best orchestrator. When I say that, you know, it sounds like a secondary job. Hugo could write something for 4 pieces that was Perfect. Everybody was in the right place, in the right register. It always sounded good. I never heard him put anything down on paper that was overdone or underdone. It was always right on the money of what it should be. He was a good writer.
And as a friend?
Oh, he was Hugo. Beardsley was terrific.
Beardsley?
Yeah. Great sense of humor. He was just a congenial, affable man. Who was fun to be with. He was a fountain of knowledge. He'd make you crazy with— you'd say something and he'd say, well, that came from— you'd say, don't tell me about it. Wonderful guy.
Quincy Jones.
Quincy is a— Quincy's talent is he knows how to get it done. Whatever has to be done, Quincy gets it done. I had a call from him one night and he said, what do you know about Indian music? I said, what kind of Indians? He said, Indians who live in a teepee. And he was doing McKenna's Gold. And I said to him, why do you want to know that? He said, because I'm doing a picture about Indians. He said, I've been laying under the piano chewing on the rug for about an hour and I thought I'd call you and ask you what you know. And I said, I got a book about Indian music, you want it? He said, I want it. I send it to him. He gets it done. It may take 10 other people to get it done, but Quincy gets it done. And what he knows, he knows as good as anybody. I think Sanford and Son is one of the best TV themes of all time. That's Quincy.
Mike Post.
Mike is another guy who— Mike is, to me, is the ultimate business person in the music business. I don't know how to categorize him. I don't think he's a good writer. He knows how to get the job done. He operates a good ship, let me put it to you that way. He has a lot of people who work for him. He knows what his end result is, and he gets the end result, and evidently, he's got a big clientele of people who are satisfied with his work. I think Hill Street Blues is a wonderful theme, probably the only one that I think is memorable.
John Williams.
John Williams is the present-day Erich von Korenfeld. He is a master of his trade, and he's a great jazz piano player too, which not a lot of people know. Johnny's a dear man, he really is, and he knows his business. He's as good as it gets in the music business.
Lalo Schifrin.
I think Lalo is another musical giant. Also cut his teeth in Television, as did John Williams. John Williams did every dumb show like Lost in Space and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and he learned his trade pretty well in TV. So did Lalo. Lalo is stylized. Lalo himself is articulate and opinionated, and I think his music is. In Lalo's music, I miss thematic music that has heart to it. And yet Lalo's not a cold man, but it's a, it's a chink as far as I'm concerned in his armor, which is enormous. Lalo has great technique, but I have never heard anything of his that stayed with me except the theme for Mission: Impossible, which is again very well organized, very articulate.
Henry Mancini.
Henry, I think, is one of the few film composers who bridged to the commercial aspect of film recording, of recording industry as well as film recording. A lot of people aren't aware of the fact that he was a very skillful film composer before anybody ever heard of him, because he worked in anonymity at Universal for years. And when he did scores like The Benny Goodman Story, the Tommy Dorsey stories, I think he did, and didn't even get an orchestration credit.
Glenn Miller story, wasn't it?
A Glenn Miller story, right, and Benny Goodman too, I think. He never even got an orchestration credit. And I think Peter Gunn was a milestone television show, and it clicked with the public, and not many film composers do. Every now and then you'll see a tune break out from But Hank hit the public right away. They liked him, they bought his records, they made him a huge hit, and he always delivered good product. But he was much better, a much better film composer than a lot of people realized.
Tony Mottola?
I don't know him.
The guitarist. New York?
I don't know him.
Okay. John Barry?
John Barry is a minimalist. And, you know, it's a peculiar thing. You look at the James Bond movies, the earlier James Bond movies, and you hear a John Barry score, and there's a tremendous amount of action going on, and there's nothing much going on in the orchestra. It's kind of repetitive, and he's a vamp artist. And then you hear some of the later scores where somebody else is doing the scores, and they're not— they don't fit. They don't seem— they do not seem right for— A James Bond picture. John Barry had that idiom down, nailed right down, and he could also write a theme and wrote some pretty good ones.
Carl Brandt.
Carl was a jack of all trades. Can you stop it?
Carl Brandt.
Carl's a jack of all trades, which was great value to me at the time because I was doing shows like Mod Squad, Andy Griffith, shows that had a totally different aura to them as far as music was concerned. And once you set the pattern of what you wanted, he would perform in it expertly. And I had a lot of appreciation for Carl's work. He was good.
How many years did you work together?
Carl joined me on Griffith, I think, in about 1961. And he was with me up until about 1970, I think.
Herbie Spencer.
Herb Spencer was, in my mind, the best arranger of all times. Not only motion picture, but just arranger. He was a great arranger. He didn't like composition or conducting. He didn't enjoy being out front. When we broke up he did a couple of shows with Lou Edelman for several years and then he went with Johnny Williams as his principal orchestrator, and I think he stayed with Johnny up until the time he got Parkinson's and had to quit.
Billy May?
Genius. That's the only way I can describe it. A jazz genius. To give you some idea, Herbie and I wrote a piece called Black Sapphire, which I don't know what we wrote it for. It wound up as a commercial in some cosmetic industry. And Connie Gazzo, the trumpet player, wanted to record it. Billy May was doing an album with Connie Gazzo. So Billy asked me if I would do the arrangement. I said sure. So I made an arrangement for Connie and I went down to Decca and Billy said to me, would you mind rehearsing it, Earl, and conducting it for a take? Because I haven't started the second tune yet. And we were slated to do 4. And while I was running that down, getting it straightened out and recording it, he wrote the second arrangement and he had the speakers were on so he could hear what was going on. We were in another key and he sat there and wrote the second arrangement and I rehearsed that and conducted it and recorded it while he wrote the third arrangement and we got 4 sides out. And I have never met anybody else with the exception of one other friend of mine, Bill Justice in Nashville, who could listen to the radio and write something in a different key. I mean, that would make me absolutely stone crazy, but Billy's a genius.
Sheldon Leonard.
My closest friend, my most missed friend. I think probably an era of his own because he brought, he brought to the television industry ensemble casting. When you take a look at the structure of The Andy Griffith Show and who was in it, or The Danny Thomas Show and who was in it, the characters that you could rely on, The Dick Van Dyke Show, the ensemble casting. Spy was not that kind of show, but the casting was always expert. The scripts were always expert. That was his, that was his field of operation, was scripts and casting, and he was obviously a very Very, very good director. I thought he was a milestone personality in television. I think he'll go down in television history as one of the great creators of our business.
Danny Thomas.
Danny Thomas was a good storyteller, a good actor, a very good actor, pretty knowledgeable about the business, and in many ways the recipient of a lot of good luck because he was associated with shows that made him very wealthy and And I think he deserved a lot of it. He was, he was one of the early pioneers of comedy in television. To me, it was a lot better then than it is now.
Lou Hagen.
My sweetheart, my best friend, to whom I've been married 55 years. Most of my adult life, and for sure the rest of it.
Earl, I can't thank you enough. This has been wonderful. On behalf of the Archive of American Television, thank you.
Thanks, John. This is a picture of Bob Kulp on the left, Bill Cosby moving from left to right, myself, and Sheldon Leonard on the end. The picture was taken for the release of the first album, Warner Brothers album, on I Spy in 1964. Bill Cosby did the liner notes for the album. They're funny. And we took this picture and had it on the back of the COVID This is a picture taken at Glen Glen Studios during a recording session of Gomer Pyle. That's Jim Nabors and Frank Sutton on the screen, and my music editor Ken Johnson sitting just below me To the right. As you can see, the orchestra is facing me and I'm facing the screen, and there is a black line on the screen which is where my cueing starts from with the lines moving from left to right. So I look at the picture, I synchronize it to the picture, and the orchestra follows me. And Kenny keeps track of if I'm missing Missed any of the cues. This picture is one that Sheldon gave me, which reads, to Earl, of your many talents, your talent for friendship is the most valued. And it's signed, Lynn. That's a treasure for me because he was one of my closest friends, and the industry will miss him.
Thank you.
This picture was taken in 1963 when we were on a scouting location around the world for sites to shoot I Spy. The picture was taken at the Bernini Fountain in Rome, and it was my wife's birthday, and we were celebrating with a dinner. That's Sheldon and Frankie Leonard on the right, and Lou and myself on the left. This was a memorable occasion for us. for us to have spent our birthday in the city of Willow. We had traveled together for 13 years. We went to Hawaii, we went to Acapulco, we did a lot of stuff together. And he was going to make the trip, and he thought, well, what the hell.
And that's why he wrote the letter to Colonel Hagenhorn?
That's why he wrote the letter, yeah.
