Lalo Schifrin, the composer best known for the icon theme to
Mission: Impossible, died on June 26 2025 at the age of 93.
Lalo Schifrin was born Boris Claudio Schifrin on June 21 1932 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. His father, Luis, was a violinist with the Buenos Aires Philharmonic. He was only six years old when he began to learn the piano. He was 16 years old when his classmates introduced him to jazz, and he quickly became a fan of the genre. At the University of Buenos Aires, he studied music and law. He received a scholarship to the Paris Conservatory of Music in 1952, where he studied classical music under composer Olivier Messiaen. At night he would play in jazz bands.
He returned to Buenos Aires in 1956. There he founded his own jazz band. It was also there that he began composing for TV shows and films.He served as the composer on the Argentinian movie
Venga a bailar el rock (1957) and
El jefe (1958). It was when jazz legend Dizzy Gillespie was visiting Argentina that he invited him to the United States to work with him. He moved to New York City in 1958 and played piano at a Mexican restaurant until he began work as an arranger with Xavier Cugat. In 1960 he performed with Dizzy Gillespie on the jazz great's album
Gillespiana.
It was in 1963 that Lalo Schifrin moved to California to work in film and television. He served as a conductor on the score for the movie
Rhino! (1964) and on television he composed and arranged background music for such shows as
Dr. Kildare and
The Man From U.N.C.L.E. He composed the score for the TV movie
Dark Intruder, which aired in 1965. In the Sixties, he composed the themes for the shows
Mission: Impossible,
T.H.E. Cat,
Mannix, and
Medical Center. He worked on such films as
Who's Minding the Mint (1967),
Cool Hand Luke (1967),
The President's Analyst (1967),
Coogan's Bluff (1968),
Bullitt (1968),
Hell in the Pacific (1968),
Where Angels Go, Trouble Follows! (1968),
Che! (1969),
Eye of the Cat (1969),
Kelly's Heroes (1970), and
WUSA (1970).
In the Seventies Lalo Schifrin composed the themes of the TV shows
Planet of the Apes,
Starsky & Hutch, and
Petrocelli. He worked on such movies as
The Beguiled (1971),
THX 1138 (1971),
Dirty Harry (1971),
Joe Kidd (1972),
Enter the Dragon (1973),
Charles Varrick (1973),
Magnum Force (1973).
Voyage of the Damned (1976),
The Eagle Has Landed (1976),
Rollercoaster(1977),
The Cat from Outer Space (1978),
The Amityville Horror (1979),
Brubaker (1980), and
The Competition (1980).
In the Eighties he worked on such films as
Caveman (1981),
Buddy Buddy (1981),
Class of 1984 (1982),
The Sting II (1983),
Doctor Detroit (1983),
The Osterman Weekend, (1983),
Sudden Impact (1983),
Tank (1984),
Bad Medicine (1985),
The Fourth Protocol (1987), and
The Dead Pool (1988). On television he composed themes for the shows
Chicago Story,
Glitter.
In the Nineties Lalo Schifrin worked on such films as
F/X2 (1991),
Scorpion Spring (1995),
Money Talks (1997),
Something to Believe In (1998),
Tango (1998), and
Rush Hour (1998). In the Naughts he worked on such films as
Longshot (2001),
Bringing Down the House (2003),
After the Sunset (2004), and
Abominable (2006). In the Teens, he worked on the films
Love Story (2011) and
Lyset fra sjokoladefabrikken (2020).
Lalo Schifrin was one of the greatest television and movie composers of all time. He was nominated multiple times for Emmy Awards and Oscars. His compositions are certainly memorable, particularly the theme to
Mission: Impossible, which remains one of the best known television show themes of all time. A 2023 list of the
"50 Best TV Theme Songs of All Time" fro
Consequences of Sound placed it at no. 4. Lalo Schifrin would be remembered if it was the only thing he had ever written, but as it is he wrote so many other pieces of music for television and film.
