Lalo Schifrin, acclaimed composer of film, classical and jazz works, dies at 93

Oscar-nominated composer, conductor and pianist Lalo Schifrin, who wrote the scores for Hollywood franchises such as “Mission: Impossible” and “Dirty Harry,” died June 26, five days after his birthday, in Los Angeles of pneumonia. He was 93. 

Born in Argentina and classically trained, Schifrin mastered many genres, including film music, jazz and classical. He composed his Tuba Concerto especially for Gene Pokorny, CSO principal tuba, who performed the work with the CSO under Riccardo Muti on June 15-17, 2023.

Nominated six times for Oscars, including the scores of “Cool Hand Luke” (1967), “The Fox” (1968), “Voyage of the Damned” (1976), “The Amityville Horror” (1979) and “The Sting II” (1983), Schifrin was best-known for his themes to television series such as “Mission: Impossible” (later rebooted as a Hollywood franchise), “Mannix” and “Starsky & Hutch." In 2019, he finally received an honorary Oscar for his lifetime achievements. At the ceremony, Schifrin said, “Composing for movies has been a lifetime of joy and creativity. Receiving this honorary Oscar is the culmination of a dream. It is a mission accomplished.”

The “Mission: Impossible” theme earned him two of his five Grammy Awards and three of his four Emmy nominations; it brought him lasting fame, not only for the 1960s TV series but for its use beginning in 1996 for the eight “Mission: Impossible” films starring Tom Cruise, with the most recent, “Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning” (2025), still in theaters.

Of that theme, composed for Bruce Geller’s influential 1966-73 spy series with Peter Graves, Martin Landau and Barbara Bain, Schifrin once said, “I wanted a little humor, lightness, a theme that wouldn’t take itself too seriously.” He chose an unusual time signature (5/4) because “there is something unpredictable about 5/4.” Schifrin said it took him just three minutes to put the theme together, and he composed it without seeing any footage from the series.

The first of two “Mission: Impossible” soundtrack albums became a best-seller in 1968, and the theme went to No. 41 on the Billboard pop charts. A track from the second “Mission” album, “Danube Incident,” has often been sampled in hip-hop and trip-hop songs (including “Sour Times” by Portishead and “Prowl” by Heltah Skeltah).

Schifrin wrote a jazz waltz for Geller’s private-eye series “Mannix,” employed a Moog synthesizer for an ambulance-like wail on “Medical Center” and composed other TV themes such as “Starsky & Hutch,” “Most Wanted” and “Petrocelli.” He even made a cameo appearance in the jazz club of “T.H.E. Cat,” another 1960s series he scored with plenty of Latin jazz.

Born on June 21, 1932, in Buenos Aires, Schifrin was the son of the concertmaster of the Buenos Aires Philharmonic. He studied piano and while attending the city’s Colegio Nacional University during the 1940s, paid to have American jazz records, which had been forbidden by dictator Juan Peron’s regime, smuggled into Argentina.

He studied composition with Juan Carlos Paz, and while at the Paris Conservatory beginning in 1952, with French composer Olivier Messiaen. His daytime classical studies and nighttime performances in Paris jazz clubs led him to believe that the walls between classical and jazz were artificial and should be torn down.

Returning to Buenos Aires in 1956, he formed his own big band. A chance meeting with jazz great Dizzy Gillespie in Argentina led to Schifrin moving to the United States in 1958 and becoming Gillespie’s pianist and arranger from 1960 to 1962. Schifrin wrote two large-scale jazz works for him, the Grammy-nominated “Gillespiana” in 1960 and “The New Continent” in 1963. “I’ve had many teachers, but only one master: Dizzy Gillespie,” Schifrin once said.

He signed with Verve Records in 1962 as an artist and arranger, winning his first Grammy for “The Cat,” for organist Jimmy Smith, in 1965 (while also arranging for fellow jazzmen Stan Getz, Cal Tjader and Bob Brookmeyer). His second Grammy was for composing “Jazz Suite on the Mass Texts,” a 1965 work for flutist Paul Horn that won praise from jazz critics and religious leaders alike. His Grammy-nominated “Marquis de Sade” LP, which placed jazz soloists in baroque and classical contexts, became a cult favorite.

His reputation as an innovative jazz composer led to an invitation to write for TV and films. Moving to Hollywood in 1963, Schifrin wrote music for “The Alfred Hitchcock Hour,” “Kraft Suspense Theatre,” “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” and other series, along with the first made-for-TV movie, “See How They Run” in 1964.

In Argentina, Schifrin had written a film score (“El Jefe,” 1958) but credited the 1964 thriller “Les Félins” (“Joy House”) by director René Clément and starring Jane Fonda and Alain Delon, which he scored in Paris, as his earliest film success. “If you compare my career to a house, ‘Les Félins’ would be its foundation,” he once said.

In addition, Schifrin shares an unlikely Chicago connection. While growing up in Buenos Aires, young Lalo started piano studies at age 6 with Enrique Barenboim, father of conductor-pianist Daniel Barenboim. He would go on to become the music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (1991-2006).

In the early ’50s, after winning a scholarship to the Paris Conservatory, Schifrin formed his own band and met be-bop great Dizzy Gillespie in 1956. In 1960, Schifrin moved to New York City, joined Gillespie’s quintet and eventually became Gillespie’s musical director. Two years later, Schifrin left to concentrate on his own writing. His catalog also features these worthy examples:

‘Gillespiana’ (1958)

From the album’s liner notes: “As soon as I had joined Dizzy Gillespie’s band, he said, ‘Why don’t you write something for us?’ His words triggered my imagination, and the ideas started to flow. Diz had been one of my greatest inspirations — still is — and the composition process was intense and exhilarating. A few days later, I took the sketches of Gillespiana to his home and played them on the piano. When I finished, he asked me, ‘How are you going to orchestrate this work?’ I replied, ‘I hear a jazz quintet… plus a brass band.’ Diz immediately called Norman Granz, who was at that time the head of Verve Records. With the telephone in his hand, he asked me how long it would take to arrange it. ‘Three weeks,’ was my response. He told Norman, ‘Book a studio a month from now.’ And this is how Gillespiana was born.”

‘Bullitt’ (1968)

Famous for its thrilling car-chase scene along the streets of San Francisco, this neo-noir stars Steve McQueen as a world-weary dectective on the hunt. Schifrin’s jazz-influenced soundtrack matches the film’s high-octane action, expertly tracking the various moods and setpieces. Schrifin received one of his eventual six Oscar nominations this year, but not for “Bullitt,” instead for “The Fox.”

‘Mannix’ (1969)

Though many regard “Mission: Impossible” as his signature television score, Schifrin’s theme for “Mannix,” the long-running detective series starring Mike Connors, is just as memorable. With its thundering timpani rolls, insistent saxophones and trumpet fanfares, all set to a 3/4 time signature, “Mannix” helped to define the sound of an era. Years later, Schifrin recalled his marching orders from series creator Bruce Geller: “Just make it exciting, because most people are in the kitchen and other rooms, and we want to draw them into the room with the television.” Of this recollection, Schifrin laughed and added, “I wish they were all like that.”

‘Dirty Harry’ (1971)

Starting with “Coogan’s Bluff” (1968), Lalo Schifrin began a long collaboration with fellow jazz aficionado Clint Eastwood. When Eastwood moved into deeper into producing with the “Dirty Harry” series, he brought Schifrin along for the ride. Directed by Don Siegel and starring Clint Eastwood as Harry Callahan, the film tracks the serial killer Scorpio (loosely based on the Zodiac case). Schifrin’s music emphasizes the alienated cop motif, and accordingly, he went on to score three of the four Harry sequels.