The Late Great Laurie Johnson

Composer Laurie Johnson, who wrote the theme for the TV show The Avengers starting with its fourth series, and scored the movie Dr. Strangelove (1964), died January 16 2024 at the age of 96.

Laurence Johnson was born on February 7 1927 in Hampstead. He studied at the Royal College of Music. He served for four years in the British Army in the Coldstream Guards, in which he played French horn. The first movie he scored was The Moonraker (1958). In the late Fifties he also scored the movies Girls at Sea (1958), No Trees in the Street (1959), Tiger Bay (1959), Operation Bullshine (1959), and Werner Von Braun (1960). He also composed music for the TV series No Hiding Place. In 1960 he began recording music for the KPM Music Library, much of which would still be used years later on such shows as Ren and Stimpy and SpongeBob SquarePants. Some of the music he composed for the library would also be released as albums, including The New Big Sound of the Laurie Johnson Orchestra (1963), The Big New Sound Strikes Again (1965), and the Two Cities Suite (1966).

In the Sixties Laurie Johnson composed the theme for the TV series The Avengers starting with its fourth series (the first featuring Diana Rigg). It would be used all subsequent series of The Avengers, as well as the sequel show The New Avengers. He composed the theme for the British version of This is Your Life ("Gala Performance"). On television he also composed music for the show Top Secret and an episode of ITV Play of the Week. He scored the movies Spare the Rod (1961), What a Whopper (1961), Siege of the Saxons (1963), Bitter Harvest (1963), Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964), The Beauty Jungle (1964), First Men in the Moon (1964), East of Sudan (1964), You Must Be Joking! (1965), Hot Millions (1968), and And Soon the Darkness (1970).

In the Seventies he composed music for the shows Shirley's World, Jason King, The Wide World of Mystery, Thriller, The New Avengers, and The Professionals. He composed music for the movies The Firechasers (1971), The Belstone Fox (1973), Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974), Diagnosis: Murder (1974), The Maids (1975), It Shouldn't Happen to a Vet (1976), and Tvingad att leva (1980). In the Eighties he composed music for It's Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987). He also composed music for the TV movies A Hazard of Hearts and A Ghost in Monte Carlo. In the Nineties he composed music for the TV movie Duel of Hearts.

Laurie Johnson also composed music for the theatre, including the productions Lock Up Your Daughters (1959), Pieces of Eight (1959), and The Four Musketeers (1967). He also composed a good deal of orchestral and band music, much of which would be re-issued over the years.

Laurie Johnson was one of the most prominent English composers and bandleaders of the latter half of the 20th Century. His theme for Top Secret even reached the British record charts. The theme to The Avengers remains one of the greatest themes to a television show ever composed. And Laurie Johnson was nothing if not prolific. For The Avengers alone he composed around 50 hours of music. To this day his music can be heard on everything from Mr. Robot to Antique Road Trip. Few composers ever saw the success Laurie Johnson did.