Elliott Kaplan; Composer for TV, Films and Ballet

Elliot Kaplan, a prolific composer of film scores, TV soundtracks and ballet music, has died of an apparent heart attack.

Don Peake, with Kaplan one of the directors of the Society of Composers and Lyricists, said Thursday that Kaplan was found dead in his Granada Hills home on May 7. He was 60.

Born in Boston, Kaplan earned undergraduate and graduate degrees at Yale University, where he studied harmony and composition under Quincy Porter and Paul Hindemith. He won a Fulbright Scholarship and continued his studies in France with Nadia Boulanger, earning a degree from the Paris Conservatory in conducting.

While in Paris he began composing and recording film and TV background music for American producers, then returned to the United States, where he scored about 50 Fox Movietone short subjects.

Over the years Kaplan--from his homes in Vancouver, New York and Los Angeles--did scores for such TV mainstays as “The Twilight Zone,” “Hart to Hart,” “Fantasy Island,” “The Bionic Woman,” “Banacek,” “Ironside” and the theme and incidental music for “Griff.”

His motion picture credits include “Cry Blood, Apache,” “Finnegan’s Wake” and “I, Marquis de Sade.”

His other compositions include “6 Etudes for Voice and Piano” to the poetry of E.E. Cummings; a multimedia opera, “Gulliver,” and four scores for the Joffrey Ballet.

A memorial service is scheduled Monday at 2 p.m. at the Directors Guild Theatre No. 2 in Hollywood.