Douglass Fake, founder of leading movie soundtrack label Intrada and producer of more than 700 albums of movie and TV music, died Saturday at a Richmond, Calif., hospital after a long illness. He was 72.
Fake’s many credits include the first complete restoration of Leonard Bernstein’s “On the Waterfront,” a lavish 5-CD release of Elmer Bernstein’s “The Ten Commandments” and the debut of several Henry Mancini scores including “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” previously only available in abridged pop recordings.
Among the label’s best sellers were expansions of previously incomplete recordings of such classics as John Williams’ “Jaws,” Alan Silvestri’s “Back to the Future” and Jerry Goldsmith’s “Alien.” Fake also supervised the re-recording of a dozen albums of classic film music including Bernard Herrmann’s “The Man Who Knew Too Much” and Miklos Rozsa’s “Ivanhoe,” “Spellbound” and “Julius Caesar.”
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A longtime film-music fan, Fake launched Intrada Records in 1985 with the first release of Basil Poledouris’ music for “Red Dawn.” Goldsmith’s “Poltergeist II” soon followed and became the first of some 85 Goldsmith releases including “Patton,” “Chinatown” and “The Wind and the Lion.” Fake also re-recorded such previously unavailable Goldsmith scores as “Islands in the Stream” and “Rio Conchos.”
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Fake partnered with other composers for the release of dozens of other soundtrack albums, including Laurence Rosenthal (“Becket,” “The Miracle Worker”), Bruce Broughton (“Tombstone”) and James Horner (“The Lady in Red,” “Troy”). He even managed to license soundtracks from the Disney company (which normally does its own releases) including “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,” “The Black Hole” and “The Avengers.”
More than half of Intrada’s output remains unavailable on streaming platforms, which makes their physical CDs collectible among soundtrack aficionados. However, the label supplies studios with pristine digital copies of what were often decaying master tapes, which become an invaluable part of the musical legacy of Hollywood.
Fake was born Feb. 23, 1952, in Massachusetts, the son of an Air Force colonel. He was a trumpet player in high school and studied music at the University of Colorado. He wrote and recorded a number of symphonic band pieces (and eventually scored a film himself, the unreleased “Holly vs. Hollywood”).
Eventually he sold soundtrack LPs at a movie-poster shop in San Francisco, which led to his creation of Intrada Records. He averaged the release of 40 albums a year at the height of the CD era, and celebrated the 30th anniversary of the label in 2015 at L.A.’s Walt Disney Concert Hall.
Said Roger Feigelson, VP of business affairs at the label: “We plan to continue operation of the store and label well into next year, to celebrate Intrada’s 40th anniversary. We’re excited to share some titles that have been in development for a long time. The business is healthy, the market is stable — it just won’t be as much fun without Doug.”
He is survived by his wife Mary Ann, daughters Regina and Veronika, sister Peggy and granddaughter Amelia. A celebration of his life and other tributes will be announced shortly.
