ASCAP mourns the loss of Nathan Scott, the prolific composer, arranger and conductor known for his work on the popular TV shows Dragnet and Lassie in the 50s and 60s. Scott died of natural causes on February 27th at the age of 94.
After majoring in music at UC Berkeley, Scott worked as an arranger for Bing Crosby's music director, John Scott Trotter. He soon moved into radio, composing, arranging and conducting music for various shows on the NBC-owned Blue Network. During WWII, Scott took his conducting and arranging talents to Armed Forces Radio Service shows like Mail Call and Command Performance.
Scott moved into film music in 1946, working on dozens of films for Republic Pictures. His film credits as composer include the John Wayne film Wake of the Red Witch (1949) as well as many more movies starring western superstars like Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Rocky Lane. Later in his career, Scott would return to film music orchestration for movies such as High Anxiety and The Color Purple. He would go on to compose or orchestrate music in more than 100 movies.
Perhaps Scott's best known work was his music for Dragnet. During the 40s, longtime collaborator Walter Schumann hired him to orchestrate Schumann's music for the Dragnet radio drama. When the series moved to TV in the 50s, Scott stayed with the show, eventually taking over as composer for the weekly episodes.
Scott remained prolific through the 60s and 70s, composing original scores for TV shows like Gunsmoke, Twilight Zone, The Untouchables, Slattery's People and My Three Sons. He also scored nearly every episode of Lassie, including arranging "Greensleeves" as the series theme. In the 70s he orchestrated TV scores for Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, among others. Upon retirement in 1988, Scott estimated that he had worked on more than 850 TV shows.
Scott was honored by the American Society of Music Arrangers and Composers in 2001.
For a more comprehensive overview of Nathan Scott's life and work, read this article at the Film Music Society's website, written by film music expert Jon Burlingame
