Profile of Edwin T. Astley on Famous Like Me

Ted Astley (1922-1998) was a British composer often known by his full name Edwin Astley. He wrote music for many British television series of the 50s and 60s, including The Adventures of Robin Hood, Danger Man (known as Secret Agent in the USA, where his theme music was removed), Department S, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), The Saint, Gideon's Way, The Baron and The Champions. Most of these programmes were part of Lew Grade's showbiz empire of ATV and ITC Entertainment.

Astley was born in WARRINGTON, LANCS, and served in the Second World War. He performed for the troops, playing saxophone and clarinet. In the early 1950s he was arranging for Geraldo. His song, "I Never Could Tell" was recorded by both Vera Lynn and Richard Tauber. His own band, the Ted Astley Orchestra, became well known in the north of England. He continued to write songs for performers such as Ann Shelton.

However, Ted Astley showed his diversity by writing the music for Sir Kenneth Clark's celebrated 1969 BBC documentary series Civilisation, and scoring several British Transport Films including Diesel Train Ride (1959), Broad Waterways (1959/60) and The Signal Engineers (1962). One of his daughters, Karen, married Pete Townshend (for whom Ted Astley scored several pieces of music), and another of his daughters, Virginia, became a recording artist herself mainly in the English pastoral vein, enjoying a cult following largely on the basis of her 1983 album From Gardens Where We Feel Secure.

Astley's actual recorded output is quite sparse,a few singles and a couple of albums of the music from "The Saint" and "Danger Man" which were only available in the States until 1997 when he arranged for CDs to be issued in the UK. The albums were expensive collectors' items. Others included the soundtrack for "International Detective", a few library records which were only semi-official and his involvement with albums made by the LSO.

His elder daughter married Pete Townshend of the Who, and another of his daughters is singer-songwriter, Virginia Astley. By 1978 Ted Astley had begun to do some arrangements for Townshend, and one of his sons, Jon, had set himself up as the official Who archivist, remastering all the original albums. With the Scoop series of Pete's demos more Edwin Astley music was made available.

In 1997 Ted found himself high on the pop charts as comoser of "The Saint" which had been revived by Orbital for the new Saint movie.Unfortunately he passed away a year later after years of illness. His last work was for a Symphonic interpreatation of Who music,which followed 1995's Symphonic Music Of The Rolling Stones, a project which has no fewer than six Astleys involved.

Possibly the most bizarre thing about Ted Astley's death is a total lack of tributes by the music media, limited to obituaries in the "Times" and the "Independent".

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