Biography

Basil Poledouris was born on August 21, 1945 in Kansas City. He started taking piano lessons when he was 7 years old. Eventually, he went on to become a student at USC, where he studied the arts of directing, cinematography, editing, sound and, of course, music. It was also at USC he met John Milius and Randal Kleiser, both acclaimed directors with whom he would work in the future. Even though Basil had already composed music to John Milius' much talked about Big Wednesday (1978), his real breakthrough came in 1982 when he composed the score to Milius' epic fantasy movie, Conan the Barbarian (1982). The powerful themes that Basil created for this movie opened the eyes of the movie industry, as well as the public, and it is arguably one of the best soundtracks of the 80s. Basil went on to make soundtracks for such movies as: RoboCop (1987) (the second Paul Verhoeven movie of many for which he has composed, the first being 1985's Flesh+Blood (1985)), Lonesome Dove (1989) (for which he won an Emmy), Farewell to the King (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Free Willy (1993), in Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers (1997) with Casper Van Dien and Denise Richards and Les Misérables (1998).
- IMDb mini biography by: Henrik R. <apogee@space-debris.net>

In 1997, he was the guest during an infamous class at USC Film School's 466 where the professor was drunk. While discussing his film Starship Troopers, the professor slumped in his chair and asked a few incoherent questions before turning it over to the class. The professor was fired that week and Leonard Maltin was brought in to teach the course.
- IMDb mini biography by: BMeister22

Worked frequently with John Milius, with whom he frequently went surfing while they were both USC film students. Their most famous collaboration was Conan the Barbarian (1982); others include Red Dawn (1984), Farewell to the King (1989) and Flight of the Intruder (1991).