30 Facts About Alexander Courage

Alexander Courage is best known as the composer of the theme music for the original Star Trek series.

The son of a Scottish father and a French-American mother, Alexander "Sandy" Mair Courage was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Alexander Courage's father arranged for young Sandy to learn the bugle as his own father had been in a band and he himself was an enthusiastic parlor singer.

Alexander Courage had been to New York with his parents and seen a show there called The Band Wagon with Fred Astaire and his sister Adele, and he knew all the songs.

Alexander Courage later learned to play the trumpet and the French horn as these instruments were available to him in school.

In high school, Alexander Courage auditioned for and was chosen as the first solo player of the New Jersey All State High School Orchestra.

Also in the orchestra was a violist for whom Alexander Courage was inspired to write a symphony, leading him to pursue music as a career.

Alexander Courage succeed in earning a spot at Tanglewood where he met Richard Bales, Lenny Bernstein, and Thor Johnson.

In 1941, Alexander Courage graduated Eastman with a degree in piano performance.

Once out of the army, Alexander Courage lived with his parents while looking for work.

Alexander Courage began as an orchestrator and arranger, working on such films as the 1951 Show Boat ; Hot Rod Rumble ; The Band Wagon ; Gigi ; and the barn raising dance from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

Alexander Courage arranged the Leslie Bricusse score for Doctor Dolittle.

Apart from his work as a respected orchestrator, Alexander Courage contributed original dramatic scores to films, including two westerns: Arthur Penn's The Left Handed Gun and Andre de Toth's Day of the Outlaw, and the Connie Francis comedy Follow the Boys.

Alexander Courage continued writing music for movies throughout the 1980s and 1990s, including the score for Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, which incorporated three new musical themes by John Williams in addition to Courage's adapted and original cues for the film.

Alexander Courage worked as a composer on such television shows as Daniel Boone, The Brothers Brannagan, Lost in Space, Eight Is Enough, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and Judd, for the Defense, Young Dr Kildare and The Brothers Brannagan were the only television series besides Star Trek for which he composed the main theme.

The composer Jerry Goldsmith and Alexander Courage teamed on the long-running television show The Waltons in which Goldsmith composed the theme and Alexander Courage the Aaron Copland-influenced incidental music.

In 1988, Alexander Courage won an Emmy Award for his music direction on the special Julie Andrews: The Sound of Christmas.

Alexander Courage frequently collaborated with John Williams during the latter's tenure with the Boston Pops Orchestra.

At the age of 35, Alexander Courage married Mareile Beate Odlum on October 6,1955.

Alexander Courage took many dramatic photos of bullfights and auto racing.

Alexander Courage was a racing enthusiast, and his interest in that sport and photography brought him into contact with many racing personalities of the era, notably Phil Hill and Stirling Moss, both of whom he considered friends.

Alexander Courage sought to interest his step-children in music, and was responsible for arranging Brian's first musical lessons, on alto saxophone.

Alexander Courage is best known for writing the theme music for the original Star Trek series, and other music for that series.

Alexander Courage was hired by Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry to score the original series at Jerry Goldsmith's suggestion, after Goldsmith turned down the job.

Alexander Courage was replaced by composer Fred Steiner who was then hired to write the musical scores for the remainder of the first season.

Alexander Courage returned to Star Trek to score two more episodes for the show's third and final season, episodes "The Enterprise Incident" and "Plato's Stepchildren," allegedly as a courtesy to Producer Robert Justman.

Notably, after later serving as Goldsmith's orchestrator, when Goldsmith composed the music for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Alexander Courage orchestrated Goldsmith's adaptation of his original Star Trek theme.

Alexander Courage had been in declining health for several years before he died on May 15,2008, at the Sunrise assisted-living facility in Pacific Palisades, California.

Alexander Courage had suffered a series of strokes prior to his death.

Alexander Courage's mausoleum is in Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery.