Irving Gertz

Obituary for Irving Gertz, who has died aged 93
Irving Gertz was a composer of classic sci-fi and horror film music. Photograph: Kathleen Mayne

Irving Gertz, who has died aged 93, was one of Hollywood's great B-movie composers. From the late 1940s to the late 60s, he wrote background music for about 200 films and television episodes, including Elvis Presley's Flaming Star, the Audie Murphy war biopic To Hell and Back, the talking-mule comedy Francis Joins the WACS, Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back, Overland Pacific, Last of the Redmen, Destination Murder, Hell on Devil's Island, and TV series such as Daniel Boone and Peyton Place.

He is most closely identified with the science-fiction and horror projects he scored, many for Universal-International in the 1950s. His musical style and ingenuity were particularly suited to mysterious and fantastic settings. He was especially proud of his work on two Jack Arnold-directed classics of the sci-fi genre, It Came From Outer Space (1953) and The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), both of which had solid literary origins in the respective writings of Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson.

He also worked on the monster-comedy Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955), Cult of the Cobra (1955), The Creature Walks Among Us (1956), The Deadly Mantis (1957), The Monolith Monsters (1957), The Alligator People (1959), Curse of the Undead (1959) - the first vampire western - and The Leech Woman (1960). On the small screen, his music enhanced more science fiction: the series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Land of the Giants and The Invaders.

Most of Gertz's work at Universal was done as part of a team, those who worked alongside him including Herman Stein, William Lava, Hans Salter and the young Henry Mancini. Thus composers seldom received screen credit for their work, though Gertz was often credited for his non-Universal scores.

Born in Providence, Rhode Island, the youngest of eight children, Gertz grew up playing the piano, clarinet, double bass and tuba. He studied with Wassili Leps at the Providence College of Music and then, briefly, with Walter Piston. Although his classical compositions were being performed by the Providence Symphony Orchestra, Gertz's interest in film music drove him to arrange an interview with Columbia pictures in New York. This provided him with a letter of introduction to the Hollywood boss Harry Cohn, and on his arrival in Los Angeles in 1938 Gertz began work in the company's music department.

During the second world war, he served as an artillery gunner and then as an officer in the US army signal corps. After it, he studied with Ernst Toch and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and began arranging and scoring motion pictures for Columbia. After leaving the studio, he worked for NBC radio, writing music for one-hour plays based on movies. In the early 50s, he began freelancing for Universal-International, while also writing for many other production companies. In 1960 he was hired by 20th Century-Fox, where he was a TV composer and music director.

After Gertz retired from film scoring, he concentrated on writing classical pieces. He was an intensely patriotic man, and many of his concert works reflected that.

Although Gertz's classical compositions received a number of performances in the concert world, the composer himself never heard any of his film music live in concert until just three weeks before he died, when music from The Deadly Mantis was played at a concert of film music in Long Beach, California. The composer received a standing ovation after the performance. While he was always partial to his western scores - which included Hell Bent for Leather, The Lone Gun, and Money, Women and Guns - Gertz accepted that he would forever be linked with the sci-fi movies, some of which he considered to have marked exciting departures.

Gertz is survived by Dorothy, his wife of 64 years, two daughters, Susie and Madeleine, and four grandchildren.

Irving Gertz, composer, born 19 May 1915; died 14 November 2008