---
name: "Shirley Walker"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/shirley-walker"
roles: ["Composer"]
born: "10 April 1945"
died: "29 November 2006"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 2
average_fi1m_score: 79
updated: "2026-09-16T21:20:23.913851+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Shirley Walker

Composer. Born 10 April 1945 in Napa, California, USA. Died 29 November 2006.

## Details

- **Work:** Composer
- **Born:** 10 April 1945, Napa, California, USA
- **Died:** 29 November 2006
- **Active:** 1982–1993

## Biography

Shirley Walker (1945–2006) was an American film and television composer, conductor and orchestrator. She began her career writing jingles and music for industrial films, later working as a synthesist on Francis Ford Coppola’s *Apocalypse Now* (1979). She studied piano at San Francisco State University on a scholarship and composition with Roger Nixon.

Walker provided music for episodes of the television series *Cagney & Lacey* (1981–1988) and composed the score for the animated feature *Batman: Mask of the Phantasm* (1993). She scored numerous other films including *Memoirs of an Invisible Man* (1992), the first three *Final Destination* films (2000–2006) and *Black Christmas* (2006), and contributed to animated series such as *Batman: The Animated Series* and *Batman Beyond*. She also worked extensively as orchestrator and conductor, notably with Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmer.

Walker received two Daytime Emmy Awards for her work on animated series. She was one of the few women scoring major Hollywood films during her career and earned a solo credit on a studio feature with *Memoirs of an Invisible Man*.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, mfiles.co.uk, latimes.com, imdb.com.*

## On Fi1m (2)

- *Batman* (1989), Fi1m 77, Conductor — [page](https://film.one/film/batman.md)
- *Cagney & Lacey* (1982), Fi1m 81, Music — [page](https://film.one/tv/cagney-and-lacey.md)

## Also credited on (not yet reviewed)

- *Batman: Mask of the Phantasm* (1993), Music

## Also known for

- *Final Destination* (2000), Original Music Composer
- *Final Destination 2* (2003), Original Music Composer
- *Final Destination 3* (2006), Original Music Composer, Conductor
- *National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation* (1989), Conductor
- *A Goofy Movie* (1995), Orchestrator
- *Batman: The Animated Series* (1992), Original Music Composer
- *Escape from L.A.* (1996), Original Music Composer
- *Backdraft* (1991), Orchestrator, Conductor

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/shirley-walker