David Raksin

David Raksin (August 4, 1912 - August 9, 2004) was an American composer born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. With over 100 film scores and 300 television scores to his credit, he became known as the "Grandfather of Film Music." One of his earliest film assignments was as assistant to Charlie Chaplin in the composition of the score to Modern Times (1936). He is perhaps best remembered for the haunting theme to the 1944 movie Laura, which became the 1945 song "Laura". Johnny Mercer put lyrics to this theme, and during Raksin's lifetime this was said to be the second most-recorded song in history following only Stardust by Hoagy Carmichael and Mitchell Parish. He also wrote the theme song to the television series Ben Casey.

Raksin's father was an orchestra conductor. Raksin played professionally in dance bands while attending high school. He went on to study composition with Harl McDonald at the University of Pennsylvania and later with Isadore Freed in New York and Arnold Schoenberg in Los Angeles. In New York Raksin worked as an arranger for Harms/Chappell.

Later in life Raksin taught at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Los Angeles.

At the time of his death, it was announced that Raksin had completed his autobiography, titled If I Say So Myself.

His son Alex is a Pulitzer Prize winning editorial writer for the Los Angeles Times.

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