Ken Thorne

Early life

Thorne was born in East Dereham, a town in the English county of Norfolk. Thorne began his musical career as a pianist with the big bands of England during the 1940s, playing at night clubs and the dance halls. At age 27, Thorne decided to seriously study composition with private tutors at Cambridge and later studied the organ for five years in London.

Film scoring

Thorne began composing scores for films in 1948. He was considered Richard Lester's composer of choice since their first work together on It's Trad, Dad! (1962), Help! (1965) and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966).

When Henry Mancini was scoring Blake Edwards' 1968 film The Party with Peter Sellers, Thorne composed the soundtrack to Inspector Clouseau. He also composed the music scores for How I Won the War (1967), The Monkees movie Head (1968), The Magic Christian (1969) and The Ritz (1976). He was also hired for Richard Lester's films Superman II and III with instructions to reuse the themes composed by John Williams from the first film and adapt them for the sequels, also adding some original work. From the 1980s, Ken Thorne mainly focused on his work for TV, working predominantly with director Kevin Connor.

Thorne also had an unexpected chart hit in 1963 when his cover version of Angelo Francesco Lavagnino's "Theme from The Legion's Last Patrol" (Concerto Disperato) reached #4 in the UK charts.

Death

Thorne died at a hospital in West Hills, California on 9 July 2014.

Awards and nominations