Ronald Stein
Born Apr. 12th, 1930 – Died Aug. 15th, 1988
He started his musical career writing scores in college, working with different opera houses and orchestras in throughout the early ’50s. It was in the mid ’50s that he started working for American International Pictures (known then as American Releasing Company). His first film was the Roger Corman directed western Apache Woman (1955). He worked for them for many years, scoring classic horror and sci-fi films like It Conquered the World (1956), The She-Creature (1956), Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957), Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957), Dementia 13 (1963), and many more. He even composed the theme song for Jack Hill’s Spider Baby (1968) with Lon Chaney singing, as well as the rest of the score for the film.
Stein was obviously a perfect match for AIP since he worked fast and cheap. Between the years of 1956 and 1958, he scored 8 films each year. Not a lot of time when you think about the way it is done these days. Thankfully quite a few of his scores are still available today on CD and are really fun to listen to.
