Bob Cobert, ‘Dark Shadows’ and ‘Winds of War’ Composer, Dies
at 95
Variety
By Jon Burlingame
February 24, 2020
Bob Cobert, the Grammy- and Emmy-nominated composer of
television’s “Dark Shadows” and “The Winds of War,” died of pneumonia Feb. 19,
in Palm Desert, Calif. He was 95.
Cobert’s themes for the 1960s Gothic horror soap “Dark
Shadows” – “great spook music,” he once called it – were his most popular
compositions, and “Quentin’s Theme” (for the character played by David Selby)
became a top 10 hit in 1969 as recorded by the Charles Randolph Grean Sound,
earning a Grammy nomination as Best Instrumental Theme.
The “Dark Shadows” score, the first daytime soap to generate
a best-selling soundtrack album, cemented Cobert’s partnership with the series’
creator-producer Dan Curtis, who continued to employ Cobert on nearly all of
his television and film projects for the next four decades.
They did three features and more than two dozen television
films together. Their largest-scale project was “The Winds of War,” the 18-hour
1983 miniseries based on Herman Wouk’s World War II novel, and its 1988-89
sequel, the 30-hour “War and Remembrance,” which brought Cobert an Emmy nomination
for original score.
Curtis’s penchant for producing successful horror projects
led to other memorable Cobert scores including his detective jazz for Darren
McGavin as reporter Carl Kolchak in the hugely popular “The Night Stalker”
(1972) and its sequel “The Night Strangler” (1973); a Romanian music-box
treatment for Jack Palance in “Dracula” (1974); and a terrifying theme for the
notorious Zuni doll menacing Karen Black in “Trilogy of Terror” (1975).
Their features included two based on the “Dark Shadows”
series (“House of Dark Shadows” in 1970 and “Night of Dark Shadows” in 1971)
and the Bette Davis haunted-house tale “Burnt Offerings” in 1976. Their other
1970s collaborations, all for television, included the high-rated
Depression-era FBI dramas “Melvin Purvis, G-Man” and “Kansas City Massacre” in
1974-75 and the Western “Last Ride of the Dalton Gang” in 1979.
Curtis, in notes for a 2000 Varèse Sarabande collection of
Cobert themes, wrote: “Bob has worked with me on nearly every picture I have
made and has never failed me. It’s almost as if he could read my mind. People
throw around this word too lightly, but in this case I am more than justified
in using it: Bob Cobert is a true genius. He can write any kind of score and
write it brilliantly.”
Robert Cobert was born October 26, 1924 in Brooklyn.
He studied composition and conducting at New York’s
Juilliard School
during the war years and later studied composition at Columbia University
with well-known classical composer Henry Cowell. During the ’40s, he also
played clarinet and saxophone at such famous venues as the Stork Club and the
Copacabana.
In the 1950s, his pop songs were recorded by such artists as
Freddy Martin and Frances Wayne; his folk opera “Frankie and Johnny” and
orchestral “Mediterranean Suite” were released on records. But television
beckoned in 1960, as producer David Susskind hired Cobert to score such
literary adaptations as “The Scarlet Pimpernel” and “The Heiress” and the
short-lived CBS horror anthology “Way Out.”
The New York-based composer also enjoyed great success with game-show themes
including “Password,” “To Tell the Truth” and “The Price Is Right” in the 1960s
and the long-running “$100,000 Pyramid” in the 1980s. His other daytime TV
credits included “The Doctors” soap and a “CBS Afternoon Playhouse,” “I Think
I’m Having a Baby,” for which he received a 1981 Daytime Emmy nomination.
The “Dark Shadows” phenomenon, spurred by the introduction
of vampire-as-tragic-figure Barnabas Collins in 1967, earned Cobert his
greatest fame. “Quentin’s Theme,” introduced as a turn-of-the-century
gramophone recording, was recorded by numerous artists including Henry Mancini
and earned a special BMI citation for more than 100 million radio broadcasts.
Cobert’s final score was for the 2005 Showtime film “Our
Fathers,” based on the Catholic church sex scandal. In retirement, he remained
popular on the “Dark Shadows” fan circuit, making several appearances at
conventions; and he composed and recorded a “Requiem for Helen” in memory of
his late wife. He also taught film composition at the University of Southern
California.
Survivors include his children William, Holly and Suzy; and
six grandchildren.
COBERT, Bob (Robert
Cobert)
Born: 10/26/1924,
New York City, New York, U.S.A.
Died: 2/19/2020,
Palm Springs, California, U.S.A.
Bob Cobert’s
westerns – composer:
The Last Ride of the Dalton
Gang (TV) – 1979
Bonanza: The Next Generation (TV) - 1988
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