More than just a composer/arranger, Earle Hagen exerted great influence on other film and television composers, acting as one of the industry's leading educator/mentors. His two ground-breaking texts, Scoring for Films (1971) and Advanced Techniques for Film Scoring (1990), created with the assistance of music editor Ken Johnson, are still widely used at film music educational facilities and hold respected positions in every Hollywood film composer's library. Taking up the trombone in his early teens, he began working professionally after high school, playing with Ben Pollack, Benny Goodman, and Tommy Dorsey. He composed "Harlem Nocturne" for a radio series as a conscious imitation of the Duke Ellington sound. White big band leader Randy Brooks picked it up as his theme song in 1941. About ten years later, saxophonist Herbie Fields released it as a single. Soon after, virtually every sax player in the R&B business had his own version of it out as well, and it was even used as the theme for the "Mike Hammer" TV series. During WW II, Hagen worked in the Army Air Corps' Radio and Film Unit in Santa Ana, CA. After his service discharge, he remained in the Hollywood movie studios, continuing to work as a musician and arranger with such great talents as Hugo Friedhofer. In the early 1950s, Twentieth Century-Fox hired him to work under Lionel Newman. Hagen worked as a second-line composer until he got his big break when he composed the hit theme for the "Perry Mason" TV show. He followed this with his whistling theme for "The Andy Griffith Show." From here, he went on to provide the theme, and soundtrack release, of his Emmy® award wining music from the Bill Cosby/Robert Culp series "I Spy." Among his other TV works are "Make Room for Daddy," "The Dick Van Dyke Show", "Mayberry RFD," "Gomer Pyle, USMC", "The Mod Squad," "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman," and "That Girl." During his career, Earle Hagen scored over 2,000 episodes of top rated television shows and still continued studying, most notably with composer George Tremblay, and teaching eager composers in Hollywood. -- John Beal Hagen's feature film credits as orchestrator include WHEN MY BABY SMILES AT ME (1948), I CAN GET IT FOR YOU WHOLESALE and ON THE RIVIERA (both 1951), WITH A SONG IN MY HEART (1952), GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES (1953), THERE'S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS (1954), DADDY LONG LEGS (1955), and CAROUSEL (1956). It's rumored that he's the happy whistler on the theme of "The Andy Griffith Show."  Nominated for Music Scoring Awards (Scoring of a Musical Picture) 1960: LET'S MAKE LOVE (w. Lionel Newman) 1 nomination