Composer Earle H. Hagen died 26 May 2008 of natural causes in Rancho Mirage, California. Born 9 July 1919 in Chicago, Illinois, he won an Emmy for Musical Composition in 1968 for I Spy, and was nominated for three other Emmys and one Oscar.
Hagen scored dozens of television shows from the 1950s to the 1980s, including The Andy Griffith Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Eight is Enough, and The Dukes of Hazzard.
His genre work as a composer includes two episodes of Planet of the Apes (1974) and the film Down to Earth (1947).
After attending Hollywood High School, where he played baritone and trombone, he left home at 16 to travel with big bands, appearing with Ray Noble, Benny Goodman, and Tommy Dorsey. In 1939, while on the road with Noble, he wrote “Harlem Nocturne”, which he would use 40 years later as the theme song for Stacy Keach’s Mike Hammer.
Hagen is survived by his second wife, Laura, whom he married in 2005; two sons, Deane and James; two stepdaughters, Rebecca and Rachel Roberts; stepson Richard Roberts; and four grandchildren. His first wife, Elouise Sidwell, died in 2002, after 59 years of marriage.