Craig Huxley

Craig Huxley (born Craig Hundley November 22, 1954) is an American film producer, musician and soundtrack producer.

Early life and child acting career

Born Craig Hundley in Hollywood, California, Huxley began his career as a child actor. His roles included two guest appearances in the original Star Trek series: as Captain James T. Kirk's nephew Peter Kirk in the episode "Operation: Annihilate!" in 1967, and as the orphan Thomas "Tommy" Starnes, Jr., in "And the Children Shall Lead" in 1968. At the age of 10, he had guest-starred on Bewitched as Samantha's warlock nephew. Also appeared in the episode, "Military School" on the Beverly Hillbillies.

At age 14, Huxley led the youthful jazz band The Craig Hundley Trio, while concurrently making a name as a concert pianist, performing Bartók's 3rd, Beethoven's 4th, Tchaikovsky's 1st and his own adaptation of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue with major symphonies and on network primetime broadcasts. Huxley performed Bach and Steve Reich in concert with Michael Tilson Thomas, and also composed dozens of his own songs and multimedia pieces. During this period, Hundley/Huxley appeared in an episode of The Brady Bunch as Greg's friend Tommy, who is responsible for a misunderstanding regarding Greg smoking cigarettes. He also appeared on The Streets of San Francisco as a musician. His appearance on Kung Fu began a long friendship with David Carradine, leading to Huxley composing the score to Americana (1981), a film directed by Carradine and starring Carradine's then wife, Barbara Hershey. He also composed the scores to the horror films Alligator (1980) and Schizoid (1980), and gained starring roles in Gene Roddenberry's Planet Earth (1974), as well as in Ron Howard's first film as a director, Grand Theft Auto.

Early music-only career

He won the Showcase 68 primetime competition show (akin to America's Got Talent), tying with Sly and the Family Stone. Craig then headlined Madison Square Garden with Deep Purple, performing jazz and Beethoven to a psychedelic light show.

As a musical phenomenon, he appeared around the world as the guest star with Bill Cosby, Tony Bennett, Johnny Mathis, and Jerry Lewis. He guest starred and was musical director for Pat Boone and Debbie Boone and for Trini Lopez. Huxley played the piano on the recording of the song "New York, New York" for the Martin Scorsese film, and on the soundtracks for The Color Purple, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and Dead Poet's Society.

At age 18, Huxley took a two-year hiatus, during which time he studied progressive, multi-dimensional philosophy, with a number of important futurists within this field. The shift in perspective he gained through these teachings subsequently led to a desire and passion for musical innovation. This resulted in the creation and patenting of several new instruments. The most recognizable of these is the Blaster Beam, featured in Star Trek: The Motion Picture as the "V'ger sound," and also featured on the score, composed by Jerry Goldsmith. The instrument, with its dark and ominous tones, has been used in many other fantasy and science fiction movies over the years. Huxley also created much of the special music for the first four Star Trek movies. Featured in Star Trek: The Motion Picture with his keyboards, modular synthesizer, and Blaster Beam. The Director's Cut features extended sections of Blaster Beam solos composed by Craig to special effects arriving in the last 48 hours before wide release of the film. Craig's composition of "Genesis Project" for The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock holds the world record for music score to the first entirely CGI film scene. The music was released on Huxley's album of the same name, but never appeared on any Star Trek soundtrack until the 2010 release of an expanded version of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

The Enterprise Studios

Through Huxley’s role on Star Trek both on and off-screen, he later became the music director for William Shatner, appearing in many shows and concerts, and helping to create arrangements of songs such as "Rocket Man" and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". He also created much of the special music for the first four Star Trek movies.

Following this, Huxley began performing most of the synthesizers on a variety of Stevie Wonder albums, and later with Earth, Wind & Fire. This era culminated with a half year project in which Huxley performed most of the keyboard, synth and sound design work on Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Craig's patented Blaster Beam is featured on "Billie Jean", "Beat It", and "Earth Song". Further notable projects within this time period are the composition and production of the music for the twenty-year and still running Captain EO exhibit at Disneyland, and producer of the hit soundtrack for Arthur C. Clarke's film 2010.

Huxley then founded The Enterprise Interactive in 1984, a multi-media conglomerate that provided services in audio, video, DVD, interactive and live productions. Enterprise in 2004 was named the #2 mixing studio in the world for hits by Billboard, hosting artists such as Beyoncé, Slash, Snoop Dogg, Barbra Streisand, Stephen Sondheim, Kelly Clarkson, Linda Perry, Quincy Jones, Maurice Jarre, Howard Shore, George Martin, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Usher, Mariah Carey, Ozzy Osbourne, John Barry, Shaq, Plácido Domingo, Christina Aguilera, Pink, Dr. Dre, and Paul McCartney. Huxley continued to produce and create within his own studio, for ten years composing music for Knots Landing with co-composer Jerry Immel and later for many years the episodes and title theme song for Walker, Texas Ranger for many years, as well as producing the soundtrack to China Beach for all four years. Full Sound Services of editorial, Foley, ADR, and sound design for the first five seasons of Imagine Entertainment's television series 24 starring Kiefer Sutherland was also provided by Huxley and The Enterprise Studios.

As a result of his producing soundtracks, he created ambient musical soundscapes for San Francisco Ballet's The Tempest by William Shakespeare. Huxley ventured into Broadway, first producing the soundtrack for Shogun: The Musical, and later creating the synthesizer orchestrations for Larry Gelbart and Cy Coleman's City of Angels.

Most recently, Huxley and his Blaster Beam were credited as one of the musicians who worked with Bear McCreary on the soundtrack for the 2016 film 10 Cloverfield Lane.

Slingshot Entertainment

Huxley launched SlingShotEntertainment.com in 1997, producing and releasing the first DVD in history (outside Japan). He has led SlingShot in multiple firsts. Huxley made the first IMAX film on DVD; the first 3D film on DVD, the first 8 languages on a DVD, the 1st interactive movie DVD, the first IMAX Multipack and the first wildlife four-packs and exploration four-packs on Blu-ray.

Huxley also created the comedy hit CD and DVD of perfect-pitch-pooches named Top Dog. To date, he has recorded three albums, Howliday Favorites in Dog,^[1] Howlin' Classics - from Bark to Beethoven,^[2] and the soon to be released Howlin' Petriots.

Huxley is the producer of eight films on endangered species and extreme expeditions, released on Blu-ray in 2010. Extreme expedition was first explored in his GoPlanet series with Explorers from Titanic (starring Buzz Aldrin and James Cameron).

Craig produced portions of the score to the meditational masterpiece Baraka.

References

External links

• Craig Huxley a.k.a. Craig Hundley at the Internet Movie Database
• Craig Huxley alias Craig Hundley at Discogs