John Cacavas

John Cacavas (born August 13, 1930 in Aberdeen, South Dakota) is a composer and conductor probably best known for his television scores, notably Kojak, for which he was the chief composer, and for which he composed the second main title theme, used throughout the shows 5th and final season. The somewhat more well-known first Kojak theme, in two distinct arrangements, however, is not by Cacavas, but rather the work of Billy Goldenberg, who scored the early episodes. Cacavass television credits also include Hawaii Five-O, The Bionic Woman, Mrs. Columbo, and Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. While he has extensive credits in television series and television movies, such as Perfect Murder, Perfect Town, he has comparatively few credits for film scores, most notably two entries in the Airport series: Airport 1975 and Airport 77. He was also responsible for the eerie score for Horror Express, a film starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Scoring music for the 1981 television movie Hellingers Law[1] reunited him with Kojak veteran Telly Savalas. More recently, he wrote the theme song for the 2005 video game Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories. The song, "March Popakov Remix", was sampled by DJ Danger Mouse and is used frequently in the game. Cacavas recently published his autobiography, entitled Its More than Do-Re-Mi: My Life in Music. He lives in Beverly Hills, California and London, England with his wife, Bonetta Becker Cacavas and is an accomplished chef. They have three grown children, Lisa, John and Jennifer, and three grandchildren, James Stewart, Eric and Alexander Cacavas.