Charles Fox

Born in the Bronx, 1940. Graduated High School of Music & Art in New York, then studied composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. Before moving to Hollywood, wrote and played Latin music for Salsa legends including Tito Puente, Ray Baretto and Joe Quijano. In addition to composing over 100 movie scores (including Barbarella and 9-5) and TV themes (Happy Days & Love Boat), wrote the music for many hit songs including "Killing Me Softly With His Song" (Grammy/Roberta Flack-Fugees), "I Got A Name" (Jim Croce), Richard's Window (Olivia Newton John/Oscar Nomination) & "Ready To Take A Chance Again" (Oscar Nomination/Barry Manilow). Classical compositions include two full length ballets: "Song For Dead Warriors" (San Franciso Ballet Company, 1979) & "Zorro" (Smuin Ballet, 2003). Other larger classical works include: "Lament & Prayer" (Warsaw Opera House/2008), "Fantasie-Homage To Chopin" (Gdansk, Poland/Chopin Festival 2010) and "Clarinet Quintet" (Santa Fe Opera House / 2015) In addition to winning 2 Emmys, a Grammy & 2 Oscar Nominations, he was given BMI's Richard Kirk Career Achievement Award in 1992 and. inducted into Songwriter's Hall of Fame in 2004. Fox served as a Board of Governor for the Academy's music branch from 2008-2016. Charles' memoirs "Killing Me Softly: My Life In Music", chronicling his 50+ year composing career and centering on his 3 years studying with Nadia Boulanger, was released by Scarecrow Press in the Fall of 2010. In 2019, for HBO's documentary "The Bronx, USA", Fox & Paul Williams wrote the title song called "Da' Bronx" which is sung live on the Bronx streets by Robert Klein and Hamilton star Donald Webber Jr. . Fox has recently returned to his early roots of Latin music-- with a series of concerts in Havana, all original Cuban music, which will be the subject of a new documentary by director Danny Gold, as well as a new live album in 2020.