On the first day of summer (winter in his native Argentina), Lalo Schifrin turns 90.

Schifrin is the composer of over 100 film and television scores, including those for “Cool Hand Luke,” “Bullitt,” “Dirty Harry,” “Enter the Dragon,” “Mannix,” “Starsky and Hutch,” “Rush Hour,” and of course “Mission: Impossible.”

Not everyone was a fan. Director William Friedkin was so displeased with Schifrin’s music for “The Exorcist,” he hurled the master tape out into the parking lot, in the presence of the composer. Schifrin had written music for the trailer, which had reportedly scared the pants off preview audiences, so the executives at Warner Bros. told Friedkin they wanted him to tone it down. Friedkin being Friedkin – this is, after all, the guy who fired guns on set to unnerve his actors and filmed the chase scene in “The French Connection” without a permit – he didn’t convey the message. Instead, he fired Schifrin and crammed his soundtrack with equally disturbing music by avant-garde masters Krzysztof Penderecki, George Crumb, Anton Webern, and Hans Werner Henze, not to mention Mike Oldfield.

Happily, most of Schifrin’s other collaborators were more genial. A highly respected jazz pianist, he was discovered by Dizzy Gillespie, who hired him on the sight. Schifrin composed for Dizzy an extended work for big band, “Gillespiana,” in 1958. He worked frequently with Clint Eastwood and scored George Lucas’ first feature, “THX-1138.” In all, he earned 22 Grammy nominations (winning five), four Primetime Emmy nominations, and six Academy Award nominations. He received an honorary Oscar in 2018.

Schifrin has lived in the United States since 1958, making a very healthy living arranging and composing across genres, including bossa nova, jazz, bebop, rock, and classical, all the while cashing those lucrative Hollywood paychecks – and collecting royalties for the continued use of his indelible theme in the “Mission: Impossible” film franchise.

Happy birthday, Lalo Schifrin!

“Concierto Caribeño” for flute and orchestra

Lalo Schifrin and Dizzy Gillespie

“Cool Hand Luke”

Rejected score from “The Exorcist”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVxZt_2qSCk

The disturbing trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XuB8DJ0AI8

Lalo receives his honorary Academy Award from Eastwood

Schifrin’s greatest hit