On Monday, August 9, 2004 at 4:48:07 PM UTC-10, Brendan R. Wehrung wrote:
> Oscar-Nominated Composer Raskin Dies
> Aug 9, 9:18 PM (ET)
> LOS ANGELES (AP) - David Raksin, an Oscar-nominated composer who arranged
> music for Charlie Chaplin's silent classic "Modern Times" and wrote the
> memorable theme for 1944's "Laura," died Monday, his son said. He was 92.
> Raksin, who had been ailing for several years and had early stage
> Alzheimer's disease, died at his Van Nuys home, according to son Alex Raksin.
> Although he wrote music for nearly 170 films and television shows, he is
> best known for the theme song to "Laura," a murder mystery directed by
> Otto Preminger.
> He wrote it after his first wife separated from him.
> "She wrote him a 'Dear John' letter, and he only had two days to write the
> score or else they were going to use another. He turned to the letter for
> inspiration," Alex Raksin said. "The studio saw a mystery. ... He saw a
> love story."
> After the film debuted, Johnny Mercer wrote lyrics for the song, which was
> later performed by Frank Sinatra, Rosemary Clooney and Ella Fitzgerald
> among others.
> Raksin received Academy Award music nominations for 1947's "Forever
> Amber," a drama set in the 1600s, and 1958's "Separate Tables," a romance.
> Raksin was born Aug. 4, 1912, in Philadelphia and was educated at the
> University of Pennsylvania.
> At 23, Raksin came to Hollywood to work with Chaplin, after toiling in
> dance bands and arranging for Broadway shows. He told the Los Angeles
> Times in 2002 that while working on "Modern Times," he transcribed
> Chaplin's hummed and whistled tunes and arranged them into a score.
> His other credits include music for "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty"
> (1947), "Force of Evil" (1948), "The Bad and the Beautiful" (1952),
> "Apache" (1954), and the TV shows "Wagon Train" (1957), "Ben Casey" (1961)
> and "Medical Center" (1969), as well as the 1983 nuclear-apocalypse TV
> movie "The Day After."
> He also worked as a music professor at the University of Southern
> California.
>
> --

According to this:

- Sondheim reportedly called it "one of the best themes ever written in films.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Raksin#Biography