Robert O. Ragland, Prolific Film Composer, Dies at 80
by Mike Barnes
His credits include the campy 1972 horror film "The
Thing With Two Heads."
Robert O. Ragland, a film composer for such 1970s cult
movies as The Thing With Two Heads and Grizzly, died April 18 at Cedars-Sinai
Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 80.
Ragland was preceded in death by his wife Martha
Montgomery, who married Ragland in 1972 after the death of her husband,
nine-time Oscar-winning film composer Alfred Newman (The King and I).
A native of Chicago, Ragland served as a musical arranger
for the Dorsey Brothers Orchestra before entering the advertising business. He
then came to Hollywood in the late 1960s and wound up scoring more than 50
films.
In addition to the The Thing With Two Heads (1972),
starring Ray Milland and Roosevelt Grier, and Grizzly (1976), which saw
Christopher George battle an out-of-control bear in a state park, Ragland
composed music for such films as Project: Kill (1976) starring Leslie Nielsen,
Q (1982), 10 to Midnight (1983) with Charles Bronson, No Place to Hide (1993),
The Raffle (1994), Top of the World (1997), Menahem Golan's Crime and
Punishment (2002) and Downtown: A Street Tale (2004).
RAGLAND Robert O. (Roberto Oliver Ragland)
Born: 7/3/1931, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
Died: 4/18/2012, Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
Robert O. Ragland’s westerns – composer:
Seven Alone – 1974
Pony Express Rider – 1976
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