Bert Shefter(1904-1999)

Russian-born pianist and film composer Bert Shefter completed his training at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Damrosch Institute. He enjoyed his first success as half of the piano duo Shefter & Gould (with pianist Morton Gould), arranging and interpreting classical music, from "Flight of the Bumble-Bee" (1933) to "Fantaisie-impromptu" (1934). He later fronted his own orchestra, performing and recording (for Victor, Decca and Brunswick) classics and jazz on radio and for theatre, often highlighting his own compositions, with titles like "Tango in Tempo", "Traffic in Times Square" and "Twilight Serenade". After 1946, he was also a frequent guest conductor at Carnegie Hall.

In the early 1950's, Shefter turned his attention to motion pictures, working both as composer and orchestrator, at first for a small production company, Lippert Pictures Inc.. He became best known for his collaboration (1956-71) with fellow-composer Paul Sawtell on a series of low-budget science-fiction films, some of which have attained a cult following. In the early 60's, Shefter worked on several productions of 'master of disaster' Irwin Allen (notably the all-star fantasy Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1961)), before becoming music supervisor on a number of seminal western and crime television series, from Bourbon Street Beat (1959) and Hawaiian Eye (1959) to Maverick (1957) and Bronco (1958). He also composed the scores for a couple of Russ Meyer's exploitation pictures, before his retirement in the mid 1970's.