Charles Fox's compositions, often created in tandem with lyricist Norman Gimbel, reached an estimated 300 million listeners weekly during their peak, thanks to the signature themes he supplied for numerous 1970s television series including Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley ("Our Dreams Come True"), Angie, The Love Boat, Wonder Woman, Love American Style, and Paper Chase. Among his most successful individual songs stand Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly," the 1978 Academy Award-nominated "Ready to Take a Chance Again" performed by Barry Manilow, Pratt and McClain's version of "Happy Days," and Jim Croce's "I Got a Name."
Fox's screen work encompasses The Other Side of the Mountain (featuring the 1975 Academy Award-nominated "Richard's Window"), Foul Play, Goodbye Columbus, One on One, Two Minute Warning, Victory at Entebbe, Pufnstuf, and Barbarella. Encouraged by his father, an accomplished mandolinist, he began piano instruction at seven and later enrolled at New York's Music and Art High School. At eighteen he traveled to France for studies with Nadia Boulanger, whose influence on him proved both musical and personal. Returning to New York in 1961, he pursued classical training while performing Latin music throughout the city and the Catskill Mountains, briefly contemplated life on an Israeli kibbutz while writing noncommercial pieces, and ultimately directed his focus toward film scoring.
A connection led Fox to Skitch Henderson, then bandleader for The Tonight Show, where he began writing incidental music and serving as both arranger and performer in the program's orchestra. Concurrently he scored short subjects, USIA productions, and industrial films. Steady assignments followed, beginning with his initial television theme for Wild World of Sports, his first background score for the television film Johnny Belinda, and his debut theatrical feature The Incident. Bob Crewe, a prior collaborator on a jazz/rock album, commissioned Fox to score the Paramount release Barbarella starring Jane Fonda; its success prompted his 1970 relocation to Los Angeles, where he continued scoring numerous television series such as The Bugaloos and motion pictures including Short Circuit II.
