Laurie Johnson, who has died aged 96, was a composer of some of the most distinctive television theme tunes of all time.
One of the most dramatic, accompanied by stylish visuals, was for The Avengers when the tongue-in-cheek series combining espionage with fantasy was revamped in 1965 for its fourth run. This coincided with the programme’s sale to US television, a change to shooting from video to film, and the arrival of Diana Rigg as the kung-fu kicking Emma Peel to assist the bowler-hatted, umbrella-twirling agent and English gentleman John Steed (played by Patrick Macnee)
Out went Johnny Dankworth’s jazz-influenced score and in came Johnson’s punchier composition. It begins with percussion as a champagne bottle held by Steed is uncorked by a bullet shot from his new sidekick’s pistol, before they fill two glasses with bubbly. Then it switches to brass, followed by a lush string arrangement, as Steed’s brolly reveals a hidden steel blade that he uses to pluck from a vase a rose that “Mrs Peel” places in his buttonhole.
The tune was based on a previous Johnson composition, The Shake, influenced by a mid-1960s dance craze. He also wrote all the incidental music for The Avengers from 1965 until its final episode in 1969 and, after Rigg left and Linda Thorson joined as Tara King for the last series, he rearranged the title theme, with more frenetic percussion and a trumpet counter-melody.
Later, for the sequel The New Avengers (1976-77) – starring Macnee with Gareth Hunt and Joanna Lumley – Johnson came up with a funky, military-style melody to reflect the red, white and blue title graphics.
He began composing for the screen after success as a conductor on stage and television. Among his early television themes were music for the crime series No Hiding Place (1959-67) and the espionage drama Top Secret (1961-62), as well as a bouncy title tune for Animal Magic (1962-84), titled Las Vegas, that captured the whimsical tone of the long-running children’s programme presented by Johnny Morris. Johnson also composed The Trendsetters, the Whicker’s World theme used between 1965 and 1968.
Then came the celebratory title music for This Is Your Life after the show switched to ITV from the BBC in 1969. Titled Gala Performance and later rearranged by Carl Davis and others, it remained even after the programme’s return to the BBC (1994-2003).
In the world of film, in 1964 Johnson had written the original music for Dr Strangelove, starring Peter Sellers in a black comedy directed by Stanley Kubrick, one of a couple of dozen movies that he worked on as a composer. The film perfectly showcased his talents for writing and arranging, from the tension he built to the irony of a soothing orchestral performance of Try a Little Tenderness.
Johnson was born in London to Marguerita (nee Ward) and Reginald Johnson, who sold insurance. He was educated at Harrow and studied at the Royal College of Music, where one of his tutors was Ralph Vaughan Williams and where he started composing his first published orchestral works.
During service with the Coldstream Guards (1944-48), he played the French horn in its band. He then became a composer and arranger for the bandleaders Ted Heath, Jack Parnell, Mantovani and others.
Johnson first wrote for the screen – and conducted the orchestral recordings – on films such as The Good Companions (1957), The Moonraker (1958), No Trees in the Street (1959) and Tiger Bay (1959). Over the following decade his music was heard in Bitter Harvest (1963), The Beauty Jungle (1964), the Columbia Pictures double bill First Men in the Moon/East of Sudan (1964), the director Michael Winner’s wacky comedy You Must Be Joking! (1965) and the Oscar-nominated crime caper Hot Millions (1968).
In a different vein he employed the sounds of trumpets, English horns and woodwind to great effect in The Belstone Fox (1973) and scored the Hammer horror film Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974).
Television producers increasingly saw Johnson as a go-to composer. His repertoire was wide, ranging from the original World in Action theme (1963-65) and the children’s drama Freewheelers (1968-73) to the sitcom Shirley’s World (1971), starring Shirley MacLaine, and the adventure yarn Jason King (1971-72).
He eventually went into partnership with the Avengers producers Brian Clemens and Albert Fennell to form Mark 1 Productions and make The New Avengers. When they followed it with The Professionals (1977-83), starring Martin Shaw and Lewis Collins, his theme tune reflected the energy and excitement of the action series. He rearranged it for the sequel, CI5: The New Professionals (1999).
With Fennell and the director John Hough, Johnson also formed Gainsborough Pictures, named after a defunct British film studio, to make feature-length TV adaptations of Barbara Cartland novels such as A Hazard of Hearts (1987), A Ghost in Monte Carlo (1990) and Duel of Hearts (1991).
He preferred the screen to the theatre, but had some stage musical success writing Lock Up Your Daughters (Mermaid theatre, 1959) with lyrics by Lionel Bart, and The Four Musketeers (Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, 1967-68) with Herbert Kretzmer. He was made MBE in 2014.
In 1957 Johnson married Dot (Doris) Morley. She, their daughter, Sarah, and their grandson, Lawrence, survive him.
• Laurence Reginald Ward Johnson, composer and arranger, born 7 February 1927; died 16 January 2024
