Bill Conti
William Conti (born April 13, 1942) is an American composer and conductor. He is best known for his film scores, including Rocky (1976), Rocky II (1979), Rocky III (1982), Rocky V (1990), Rocky Balboa (2006), The Karate Kid (1984), The Karate Kid Part II (1986), The Karate Kid Part III (1989), The Next Karate Kid (1994), For Your Eyes Only (1981), Dynasty (and its sequel The Colbys) and The Right Stuff (1983), which earned him an Academy Award for Best Original Score. He also received nominations in the Best Original Song category for "Gonna Fly Now" from Rocky and for the title song of For Your Eyes Only.
Bill Conti
Kevin Paul · CC BY 4.0
- Nationality
- United States.
- Occupation
- composer, conductor, film score composer, musician and bandleader.
- Fields
- film score and disco.
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Bill Conti, compositore, musicista, bandleader e direttore d'orchestra, nacque il 13 aprile 1942 a Providence, Rhode Island, Stati Uniti.
Vita
La nascita è registrata dalla Bibliothèque nationale de France e dalla Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.
Istituzioni citate
Bibliothèque nationale de France · Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
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In this article
Early life
Early life
He was the musical director at the Academy Awards a record nineteen times. Conti is known for his collaborations with director John G. Avildsen, having scored fourteen films for Avildsen, beginning with Rocky (1976) and ending with Inferno (1999). Their collaboration included such pictures as the first three films in The Karate Kid franchise (1984–1989), Slow Dancing in the Big City (1978), The Formula (1980), and Neighbors (1981).
Conti, an Italian American, was born in Providence, Rhode Island, the son of Lucetta and William Conti. He graduated from North Miami High School in 1959. He is a past winner of the Silver Knight Award presented by the Miami Herald. He is a graduate of Louisiana State University School of Music, where he met his wife Shelby Cox, and earned a master's degree with honors from the Juilliard School of Music.
Rocky series
Rocky series
As early as 1971, Bill was orchestrating pop recordings by Italian artists, such as the album Sì... incoerenza ("Yes to Incoherence") by Italian singer Patty Pravo. He was also a ghostwriter of the scores for spaghetti Westerns. Conti's big break into celebrity came in 1976, when United Artists hired him to compose the music for a small film called Rocky. The film became a phenomenon and won three Oscars at the 49th Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The same ceremony was also the first time Conti served as musical director for the telecast, a role he reprised 19 times, more than any other person. His training montage tune, "Gonna Fly Now", topped the Billboard singles chart in 1977, and earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song. Conti also composed music for the sequels Rocky II (1979), Rocky III (1982), Rocky V (1990) and Rocky Balboa (2006).
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 1 entries
1942
Bill Conti born at Providence.
Other film and television credits
Conti also worked for some other films and, eventually, for television series. In 1981, he wrote the music for the James Bond film For Your Eyes Only, when John Barry was unwilling to return to the United Kingdom for tax reasons, and provided the score for playwright Jason Miller's film version of his Pulitzer Prize-winning play That Championship Season the following year. In 1983, Conti composed the score for HBO's first film, The Terry Fox Story. He then did Bad Boys, Living Proof: The Hank Williams Jr. Story, Mass Appeal. In 1984, he won an Academy Award for composing the score to 1983's The Right Stuff, after which he wrote the music for the TV series North and South in 1985. He also scored the Masters of the Universe live action film. Another score was the 1987 film Happy New Year. In 1991, Conti composed for Necessary Roughness, a college football film. In 1993, he wrote the music for The Adventures of Huck Finn starring Elijah Wood and directed by Stephen Sommers. In 1999, he composed the score for The Thomas Crown Affair remake, starring Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo. That year, he scored Inferno, starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. Conti composed the themes to television's Dynasty, The Colbys, Falcon Crest and Cagney & Lacey. He wrote the theme song to the original version of American Gladiators, worked with CBS on its 1980s film jingle, composed one of the early themes of Inside Edition, and wrote the Primetime Live theme for ABC News. He composed the score to the studio-altered American version of Luc Besson's The Big Blue. Two of Conti's previously composed works were reused for the show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. These were the love theme "Come with Me Now", from the soundtrack for Five Days from Home (used for the show's main theme), and "Runaway", from For Your Eyes Only (used for in-show content).
Awards and nominations
Conti has been nominated for three Academy Awards, winning one in the Best Original Score category for The Right Stuff. He also received nominations in the Best Original Song category for "Gonna Fly Now" from Rocky and for the title song of For Your Eyes Only. He had three Golden Globe nominations; two for Best Original Score for Rocky and An Unmarried Woman, and one for Best Original Song for the title song of For Your Eyes Only. Conti also received thirteen Emmy nominations, all but one for his role as musical director at the Academy Awards (the exception, his first nomination, was for his music for the 1985 series North and South). He won three Emmy Awards for Outstanding Musical Direction for the 64th, 70th and 75th Academy Award ceremonies. On April 22, 2008, at the LSU Union Theatre at Louisiana State University, Conti was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.
Bill Conti after conducting at half-time at a University of Washington Football match
Melissa Doroquez from Redmond, USA · Bill Conti, Harry and Tom
Text attribution
Licensing
Text attribution
Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Bill Conti, revision 1373444695 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Colin Larkin. The Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Virgin Books. 297/8. 1997. 1-85227-745-9.
- 2.The Music Behind the Screen: Cue Bill Conti. Music Behind the Screen. February 24, 2014.
- 3.Inferno - Bill Conti - soundtrack (CD).
- 4.MacDonald, Laurence E. The Invisible Art of Film Music: A Comprehensive History. The Scarecrow Press. 324. 2013. 978-0-8108-9058-9.
- 5.North Miami High School Alumni Events » Famous Pioneers.
- 6.Dahlberg, Nancy. Silver Knight Scholarship Endowment Fund launches with more than $3 million in grants. Miami Herald. October 30, 2017.
- 7.Cusimano, Clarissa. Patty Pravo, vita, figli e amori: tutto sulla cantante nota come La Ragazza del Piper. LettoQuotidiano.it. July 23, 2020.
- 8.Simpson, Paul. Bond Vs. Bond: The Many Faces of 007. Race Point Publishing. 138. 2015. 978-1-63106-000-7.
- 9.Newman, Peter C. The Terry Fox project in black. Maclean's. May 30, 1983.
- 10.Maslin, Janet. JACK LEMMON IN 'MASS APPEAL'. The New York Times. December 17, 1984.
- 11.MacDonald, Laurence E. The Invisible Art of Film Music: A Comprehensive History. The Scarecrow Press. 323. 2013. 978-0-8108-9058-9.
- 12.Brode, Douglas. The American Civil War on Film and TV: Blue and Gray in Black and White and Color. Lexington Books. 204. 2017. 978-1-4985-6688-9.
- 13.Powell, Larry. The Films of John G. Avildsen: Rocky, The Karate Kid and Other Underdogs. McFarland & Company. 151. 2013. 978-0-7864-6692-4.
- 14.Johnson, Malcolm L. UNNECESSARY 'ROUGHNESS' IS PREDICTABLE, COLLEGE-GRIDIRON PICTURE. Hartford Courant. September 28, 1991.
- 15.Gripsrud, Jostein. The Dynasty Years: Hollywood Television and Critical Media Studies. Routledge. 46. 2003. 0-415-08598-5.
- 16.Torres, Agnes. COMPOSER BILL CONTI IS A MASTER OF MOVIE MUSIC. Orlando Sentinel. July 6, 1986.
- 17.Horovitz, Bruce. Killer Music Signs Big Names to Do Product Jingles. Los Angeles Times. May 21, 1991.
- 18.Carter, Bill. A Ripple of Interest for 'PrimeTime Live'. The New York Times. August 8, 1989.
- 19.Lanzoni, Rémi Fournier. French Cinema: From Its Beginnings to the Present. Bloomsbury Academic. 346. 2015. 978-1-5013-0307-4.
- 20.The 56th Academy Awards (1984) Nominees and Winners. Oscars.org.
- 21.COMPOSER CONTI WILL CONDUCT AT 62ND ACADEMY AWARDS. Deseret News. January 24, 1990.
- 22.Bill Conti. Golden Globe Awards.
- 23.Awards Search. Emmys.
- 24.BILL CONTI - 2008. Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.
- 25.Bill Conti: Chart History. Billboard.
References
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References
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The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 14 August 2026.
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