Film Music Producer Douglass Fake has Died, Aged 72

Fake, who produced over 700 albums of movie and TV music, has passed away following a long illness

Among Douglass Fake’s many credits include the first complete restoration of Leonard Bernstein’s On the Waterfront, and the debut of several Henry Mancini scores including Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

With his own record label, Intrada, he averaged the release of 40 albums a year, and celebrated the 30th anniversary of the label in 2015 at Los Angeles’ Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Fake was born in 1952, in Massachusetts, the son of an Air Force colonel. He played trumpet in high school and took music studies at the University of Colorado. 

He was soon writing and recording several symphonic band pieces, and composed the score to the 1998 film Holly vs. Hollywood. Fake later sold soundtrack LPs at a movie-poster shop in San Francisco.

In 1985, he co-founded the Intrada label, which has been significant in the industry for over 30 years releasing film and TV soundtracks — many of which Fake helped to preserve and promote. Among Intrada’s bestsellers were expansions of previously incomplete recordings such as John Williams’ Jaws, Silvestri’s Back to the Future and Goldsmith’s Alien. 

Fake also licensed soundtracks from the Disney company including 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, The Black Hole, and The Avengers, plus supervised the re-recording of a dozen albums including The Man Who Knew Too Much and Rozsa’s Ivanhoe, Spellbound, and Julius Caesar.

“I had a disagreement with an instructor in college about film music vs. concert music,” Fake said at Intrada’s 30th anniversary celebration in 2015. “He actually threw me out of class when I proved that Ralph Vaughn Williams’ Seventh Symphony had its origins as a soundtrack (in Scott of the Antarctic). I vowed then to prove that film music was as substantial as any classical composition, and deserved to be brought from the background into the foreground. And that’s what we do.”

“We plan to continue operation of the store and label well into next year, to celebrate Intrada’s 40th anniversary,” said Intrada’s VP of business affairs, Roger Feigelson in a tribute. “We’re excited to share some titles that have been in development for a long time. The business is healthy, the market is stable — it just won’t be as much fun without Doug.”

Mr. Fake is survived by his wife, daughters, sister, and granddaughter. Our condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues.