Marlin Skiles

Pianist, arranger and composer Skiles was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in December 1906.^{[citation needed]} He was the son of Mr. and Mrs. H. J. Stiles.^[2] He studied music at his local conservatory, later perfecting his training under Ernst Toch in Los Angeles.^{[citation needed]} He graduated from Harrisburg Technical High School in 1925.^[2]

Skiles began his career when he was 17 years old.^[2] By the 1920s, he was employed as a pianist, arranger and orchestrator with big name dance bands like those of Paul Whiteman and Irving Aaronson and His Commanders. In Hollywood from 1932,^{[citation needed]} he signed with Republic Pictures in 1943^[3] was under contract there and at Columbia Pictures (1944–1948), often writing incidental music for second features. He occasionally composed original soundtracks for better productions, like A Thousand and One Nights (1945) or Dead Reckoning (1946). Skiles served as musical director for Columbia's mega-hit Gilda (1946), starring Rita Hayworth in her most famous role. He became a member of ASCAP that same year. Skiles worked as a free-lancer from the 1950s and retired in 1971.^{[citation needed]}

Skiles and his orchestra provided music for the CBS radio program Crime Correspondent,^[4] and he was music director for the television series Death Valley Days.^[5]

Skiles married singer and actress Olive Jones, whose stage name was Olive Cromwell, on July 11, 1936, in Riverside, California.^[6] He died of cancer complications on May 1, 1981, in Rancho Bernardo, San Diego, California, aged 75.^[5]

• Tahiti Honey (1943)
• Call of the South Seas (1944)
• The Lady and the Monster (1944)
• A Thousand and One Nights (1945)
• She Wouldn't Say Yes (1945)
• Rough, Tough and Ready (1945)
• Over 21 (1945)
• Gilda (1946)
• The Walls Came Tumbling Down (1946)
• Gallant Journey (1946)
• Dead Reckoning (1947)
• The Doolins of Oklahoma (1949) (uncredited)
• The Boy from Indiana (1950)
• Flat Top (1952)
• Fort Osage (1952)
• The Rose Bowl Story (1952)
• Aladdin and His Lamp (1952)
• Rodeo (1952)
• Wild Stallion (1952)
• Wagons West (1952)
• The Maze (1953)
• Pride of the Blue Grass (1954)
• Sudden Danger (1955)
• Canyon River (1956)
• The Young Guns (1956)
• Calling Homicide (1956)
• My Gun Is Quick (1957)
• The Disembodied (1957)
• Man from God's Country (1958)
• In the Money (1958)
• The Beast of Budapest (1958)
• Cole Younger, Gunfighter (1958)
• Quantrill's Raiders (1958)
• Fort Massacre (1958)
• Queen of Outer Space (1958)
• Joey Ride (1958)
• King of the Wild Stallions (1959)
• The Hypnotic Eye (1960)
• The Deadly Companions (1961)
• Gunfight at Comanche Creek (1963)
• The Crawling Hand (1963) (uncredited)
• The Strangler (1964)
• The Shepherd of the Hills (1964)
• Indian Paint (1965)
• Space Probe Taurus (1965 - as Marlin Skyles)
• The Violent Ones (1967)
• Dayton's Devils (1968)
• The Resurrection of Zachary Wheeler (1971)