I'm generally pessimistic about the dumbing down of America - especially with summer movies.

One of the things that happens in the business is that success is a very strange thing in that if you are involved in something very successful the next person wants you to repeat it.

Jerry Goldsmith is the #1 composer working now. He's open to new ideas and always inventing.

I would do the occasional score. I thought it was the most thrilling thing. It was instant. You made the music and they played it right away to millions of people. I found it thrilling.

I made my way on to a grey list, a black list even. That's something I'm very proud of, actually.

Victor Young had been hired to write the score for the dances of The Ten Commandments but he became very ill. You were then hired to write the score. But at the same time you'd written The Man with the Golden Arm score.

I'm generally pessimistic about the dumbing down of America - especially with summer movies.