Biography
Ronald Stein (1930–1988) was an American film composer, conductor and pianist. He studied at Washington University in St Louis, the Yale School of Music and the University of Southern California. After military service he worked as a rehearsal pianist and assistant conductor before entering film music in 1955.
From 1955 to 1959 he served as music director for American International Pictures, composing scores for dozens of low-budget horror, science-fiction and exploitation films directed or produced by Roger Corman. His credits from this period include Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957), Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958), The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), The Premature Burial (1962), The Haunted Palace (1963) and Dementia 13 (1963). He later provided music for Spider Baby (1967) and stock music for Targets (1968).
Stein also scored higher-profile productions such as Francis Ford Coppola’s The Rain People (1969) and Richard Rush’s Getting Straight (1970). He taught composition and related subjects at California State University, Northridge and the University of Colorado Denver. He died in Los Angeles of pancreatic cancer.
