Biography
Herman Stein (19 August 1915 – 15 March 2007) was an American composer who worked as a staff composer at Universal Studios from 1951. Born in Philadelphia, he was a child prodigy who began playing the piano at the age of three and gave his first public recital at six. Largely self-taught, he worked as a jazz arranger for radio and big bands including those of Count Basie and Fred Waring before moving to Los Angeles in 1948 and studying with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco.
At Universal he contributed music to nearly 200 films, often uncredited or sharing credit, including westerns, comedies and dramas as well as the science-fiction and horror pictures for which he is best known. His credits include It Came from Outer Space (1953), Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Tarantula (1955), This Island Earth (1955) and The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957). He also composed for television series such as Gunsmoke and Lost in Space (1965). Stein retired in the 1970s and died of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles.
