Edwin Thomas "Ted" Astley was a British composer.
13 Facts About Edwin Astley
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Edwin Astley's best known works are British television themes and scores, most notably the main themes for The Saint, Danger Man and The Baron.
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Edwin Astley served in the Second World War as a musician in the Royal Army Service Corps band playing saxophone and clarinet for the troops.
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Edwin Astley wrote the orchestral and "opera" score for the Hammer Films version of The Phantom of the Opera.
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Edwin Astley wrote two arrangements of his own theme for The Saint, a slow version used in the black and white episodes and a more up-tempo arrangement of the same theme for the colour episodes.
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Edwin Astley then wrote a second theme, used in the second season of the colour episodes, based around Leslie Charteris' own theme music, which had previously been used in films and on radio.
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However, Edwin Astley showed his diversity by writing the music for Sir Kenneth Clark's BBC documentary series Civilisation, and scoring several British Transport Films including Diesel Train Ride, Broad Waterways and The Signal Engineers.
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In 1997, Edwin Astley found himself at number three on the UK singles chart as composer of "The Saint", 33 years after he wrote it, which had been revived by Orbital for the new Saint movie.
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Edwin Astley's last work was a 1998 symphonic interpretation of Who music called Who's Serious: The Symphonic Music of the Who, which followed 1995's Symphonic Music of the Rolling Stones.
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Edwin Astley's actual recorded output is quite sparse, consisting of a few singles and albums of the music from The Saint and Danger Man.
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In 1977, Edwin Astley wrote the orchestral score for Street in the City, a song recorded for the Pete Townshend and Ronnie Lane album Rough Mix.
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Edwin Astley married Hazel Balbirnie in 1945, and had five children.
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Edwin Astley retired in the late 1970s, and died in 1998.