Samuel Matlovsky

Composer and Conductor dies at 82

February 17, 2004

By Variety Staff

Samuel "Sandy" Matlovsky, conductor and composer of pics "Gentle Giant" and "Namu, The Killer Whale," died of natural causes Feb. 17 in Haverhill, Mass. He was 82.

After the war he settled in Gotham where he worked with such notables as Martha Graham, Lotte Lenya and Zero Mostel. While in New York he conducted the revival of George Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess" and was musical director of the off-Broadway productions of Bertolt Brecht's "Threepenny Opera" and "Mother Courage."

Matlovsky returned to Europe in the early 1950s to tour with Orson Welles and Eartha Kit and later with the "Porgy and Bess" company. In the 1960s he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career in film and television, working on such pics as "Spartacus," "Games" and "The Illustrated Man," and with such luminaries as Stanley Kubrick, Alex North, Jeremy Goldsmith and Gene Roddenberry.

His work in TV, which included scores for "Flipper" and "Star Trek," subsequently took him to Toronto, where he worked on such projects as the "Philip Marlowe, Private Eye" skein for HBO.

He is survived by two daughters, a brother, a sister and two grandsons.

In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to The ALS Association, 27001 Agoura Road, suite 150, Agoura Hills, CA 91301, or to Save the Children, Attn: Donor Services, 54 Wilton Road, Westport, CT 06880.