 Self-taught, his break came when he substituted for an ill colleague on a radio show.Subsequently, he went on to become a composer/arranger at NBC Studios for such television shows as "Rawhide" 1962 and "Laredo", 1965–67.He worked at Universal Studios and MGM, where at the latter he composed and conducted the original scores for such films as George Pal's "The Time Machine" (1960) and "Atlantis, the Lost Continent" (1961).