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Finding Aid for the Paul Sawtell Collection,
1939-1964
239
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Title: Paul Sawtell Collection,
Date (inclusive): 1939-1964
Collection number: 239
Creator:
Sawtell,
Paul
Extent:
247 boxes
(123.5 linear
ft.)
Repository:
University of California, Los Angeles. Library.
Performing Arts Special Collections
Los Angeles, California 90095-1575
Abstract: Music scores for film and television by Paul
Sawtell, and other documents and photographs relating to his life and
career.
Physical location: Stored off-site at SRLF. Advance notice
is required for access to the collection. Please contact Performing Arts Special Collections
for paging information.
Language:
English.
Collection is open for research. Collection is stored off-site and
advance notice is required for access.
Property rights in the physical objects belong to the UCLA Music
Library. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the
creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to
determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or
her heir for permission to publish if the Performing Arts Special Collections does not hold the
copyright.
[Identification of item], Paul Sawtell Collection, 239, Performing Arts Special Collections
Special Collections, University of California, Los Angeles.
Processed by: Performing Arts Special Collections staff, 2004
Born February 3, 1906 in Poland, Paul Sawtell started his career at RKO
studios, then moved to Universal, where his first assignment was The Pearl
of Death, part of the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes series.
He returned to RKO during the second half of the 1940s and also worked for
various independent producers, such as Aubrey Schenk at Eagle Lion, and
Harry Sherman at United Artists. In 1951 he began a relationship with
producer/director Irwin Allen when he scored the Oscar-winning documentary
The Sea Around Us. Begining in the late '50s, Sawtell became extremely
busy scoring science fiction films such Kronos, It! The Terror From Beyond
Space, The Black Scorpion, and The Fly, amid his usual spread of Westerns
and dramas. He joined Irwin Allen's production team, scoring films such as
The Story of Mankind, The Big Circus, The Lost World, Five Weeks in a
Balloon, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. During the 1960s, he
remained busy in features, co-writing the music for such familiar science
fiction titles as the Italian-made The Last Man on Earth starring Vincent
Price, but by the middle of the decade he had largely moved to television,
working on Allen's series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, for which he
wrote the well-known title theme. He died on August 1, 1971.
Music scores for film and television by Paul Sawtell, and other
documents and photographs relating to his life and career.