Sid Ramin

• Born 22 January 1924 Boston, Massachussetts

Ramin grew up with Leonard Bernstein in Boston and studied at the New England Conservatory of Music and Boston University before moving to New York City. He worked as the staff composer and arranger for "The Milton Berle Show" from 1949 to 1956, and began working as a staff arranger with RCA toward the end of this period. Bernstein hired him to handle the orchestrations for his musical "West Side Story" and Ramin eventually won a Grammy for the soundtrack album and an Academy Award for scoring the movie version. He later arranged the most memorable numbers from the musical into suite for symphony orchestra that's often performed in pops concerts.

After "West Side Story,", Ramin was in demand on Broadway, and he contributed arrangements for the musicals "Gypsy!", "Wildcat," "I Can Get It For You Wholesale," and "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." Ramin worked in television again in the early 1960s as the musical director for "The Patty Duke Show" and "Candid Camera." He provided television with some of the most memorable advertising jingles of the 1960s, including "Come Alive!" for Pepsi and "Music to Watch Girls By" (later a Top 10 hit for the Bob Crewe Generation) for Diet Pepsi. Ramin also composed the original scores for the movie version of Harold Robbins' Stiletto.