Biography

Los Angeles native Gordon Robert Zahler was a significant innovator in the development of music and sound effects in post war Hollywood. Zahler was born on February 10, 1926, the son of songwriter Lee Zahler and Rose Rosenberg. When he was just fourteen Zahler broke his neck while attempting a gymnastic feat at a Pasadena school. Eventually the medical bills he and later his father (who died in 1947) generated would plunge the family deeply into debt. Gordon Zahler's amazing ability at the age of twenty-one to escape poverty and instead eke out a successful Hollywood career is chronicled in the book "Wheeling the Deal: The Outrageous Legend of Gordon Zahler, Hollywood's Flashiest Quadriplegic" (2006) by Chip Jacobs (Zahler's nephew).

Gordon Robert Zahler passed away in the City of Angels on December 22, 1975 at the age of forty-nine. He was survived by his wife, the former Judy M. Wetzel, whom he'd married in Santa Barbara, California on August 31, 1962.

The Pasadena Weekly, May 5, 2006, California Birth, Marriage and Death Indexes, Rosenberg Family Genealogy
- IMDb mini biography by: John F. Barlow

Son of Lee Zahler.

He served as the "music supervisor" on many low budget productions by scoring those productions with existing stock music cues.

Gordon Zahler was paralyzed from the neck down in a gymnasium accident at the age of fourteen. Despite this, he built an incredible career in Hollywood as a composer.