Biography
Paul Sawtell was a Polish-born film score composer. Born Paul Sawatzki on 3 February 1906 in Geluwe (then in the German Reich, now Poland), he died on 1 August 1971 in Los Angeles, California.
He began his career under contract at RKO from 1938, initially writing music for B-pictures, before joining Universal Pictures in 1944. There he scored entries in the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes series, including The Pearl of Death (1944) and The Scarlet Claw (1944). He later returned to RKO and collaborated with Roy Webb on several Tarzan films.
In the 1950s Sawtell formed a long-running partnership with composer Bert Shefter, producing scores for numerous low-budget horror and science-fiction films such as The Fly (1958), It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958), Return of the Fly (1959), Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961) and Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965). He also composed the main theme for the Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea television series.
