Biographies | Biographies |
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Producer - Richard De Benedictis In the field of films, he created the dance music for "The Night They Raided Minsky's," he was a special consultant and involved in the music production for "Funny Lady" and wrote the score for William Holden's last film "The Earthling," to name a few. In his work for television, Dick composed the themes and many episode scores for the long running Fred Silverman/Dean Hargrove Viacom series "Matlock," "Father Dowling," "Jake and The Fatman," and "Diagnosis Murder," as well as the pilot for "Heat of The Night." He scored all 36 installments of the "Perry Mason" two hour movies as well as numerous "Columbo" movies of the week. A sampling of his vast television credits include "Quincy," "Murder She Wrote," "Hawaii Five-O," "Rockford Files" and 3 MTM comedies as well as many other pilots and series. He also composed and sang the title song for the syndicated series "What a Country" and has received a number of ASCAP Awards for Most Performed Themes and Underscore. Dick has earned ten Emmy Nominations for his work on "Ziegfeld-The Man and His Woman," "Dear Detective," "Police Story," "Perry Mason," "Matlock," "Diagnosis Murder," and others. In addition to his film and television credits, Dick has acted as music director/arranger and/or accompanist for such stars as Chita Rivera, Liza Minelli, Bing Crosby, Lily Tomlin, Bernadette Peters, Michelle Lee, Carol Burnett and Barbara Streisand. Recently, Dick has written the book, music and lyrics for three musicals, one of which "The Gentleman Cole," was produced at Cal Lutheran University, "Mind Games," which is under construction by NYU and the other "Bert n' Eddie," the story of Bert Williams and Eddie Cantor, which was presented at Pierce College in January of 2005. He's also written a number of feature film screenplays: "The Mercy Killer," "The Change of Heart" - a Christmas musical, as well as, "Marilyn Monroe is Missing" and "Hollywoodland" which he cowrote with Bill Dyer. In addition to writing, Dick has taught Music Theatre Performance and Audition Technique at Cal State Northridge (1970's), Cal Arts and USC (1980's), as well as Cal Lutheran, Pepperdine and Pierce College Master Classes. He's also guest lectured in film composition at various colleges and universities throughout Southern California. |





