Brad Fiedel

Brad Ira Fiedel (born March 10, 1951) is a retired American composer for film and television. Known for his signature synthesizer-heavy style, Fiedel is perhaps best known for his now-iconic collaborations with director James Cameron on The Terminator and its critically acclaimed sequel Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Working primarily in the genres of science fiction, action, and horror, his filmography includes Fright Night and its sequel, The Serpent and the Rainbow, Blue Steel, True Lies, and Johnny Mnemonic. Raised in Bayville, New York on Long Island, Fiedel graduated from The Barlow School. After college, he became a popular and progressive composer, and in the 1980s, he worked on several successful movies, predominantly in the action and thriller genres, and pioneered the use of electronic instruments and synthesizers—almost disappearing from the mainstream at the end of the 1990s. He was the keyboardist for Hall and Oates. He began his career in film in the late 1970s, and wrote extensively for television films and minor cinema releases, until director James Cameron hired him to score the science fiction film The Terminator in 1984, setting the wheels in motion for a successful career. Since then, Fiedel has scored many popular and successful movies, including Fright Night (1985) and its sequel Fright Night Part 2 (1988), The Big Easy (1987), The Serpent and the Rainbow (1988), The Accused (1988), Blue Steel (1990), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Blink (1994), and True Lies (1994), although in recent years, Fiedel has moved on to other creative areas, writing original musicals and designing and building a surf resort in La Saladita, Mexico. His last major theatrical score was in 1995, and although he enjoyed a brief period of renewed interest following the release of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines in 2003, when Marco Beltrami wrote an orchestral arrangement of his theme, he shows no sign of returning to the film music field. Fiedel has been married to actress Ann Dusenberry since 1975; the couple has two children. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.