Angelo Francesco Lavagnino was a classically-trained musician who, after an early career in the concert hall and the opera house, and as a teacher, turned to writing film music in the early 1950's. His scores included a surprising number of highly visible international productions, including Orson Welles's Othello and Chimes At Midnight, Eugene Lourie's Gorgo, and Henry Hathaway's Legend Of The Lost, starring John Wayne. Thus, he became one of the best known Italian film composers of the era -- ironically, he was Sergio Leone's first choice to write the music for A Fistful of Dollars but his distributor insisted that the director use the services of a younger, less well established composer named Ennio Morricone, instead. ~ Bruce Eder