Emmy and Grammy Winner Charles Fox Shares His Greatest Work: His Family

This first thing I noticed when I pulled up to Charles Fox's two-story home on Woodley Avenue was the old basketball hoop out back. There it stood in the September afternoon sunlight, surrounded by trees, a tennis court and a sweeping backyard. While the expansive estate reflected Fox's immense success in the entertainment industry, the old hoop was refreshingly ordinary.

"Charlie will be right in," said Fox's assistant, Will Collyer. "He's just having a bite."

Will led me into the music studio adjacent to the main house—a large room with recording equipment, speakers, a grand Yamaha piano, a desk and computer console. With gold and platinum records for wallpaper and awards prominently displayed around the studio, I knew I was about to meet with a true legend.

And while I waited for him to finish up his lunch, I took a closer look at the studio's built-in, wall-to-wall bookshelf. Behind his Grammy for "Killing me Softly with His Song" there was a picture of his granddaughter Ava, smiling in a homemade, orange Halloween-themed picture frame. To the right of his 1973 Emmy award for his score to the television film Love, American Style stood an old photograph of Fox and his father. And alongside his collection of The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians sat 25 neatly stacked black binders containing his son Robbie's  screenplays. Dozens of faded pictures and dog-eared scrapbooks joined the fan mail, his eminent LPs and music memorabilia. Like the old hoop out back, they serve as the balance between fame and family.

Throughout his 55-year career, Fox has composed more than 100 motion picture and TV scores, ballets and classical works. He wrote the theme songs for 70's television shows including Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, The Love Boat, Wonder Woman, and Love, American Style. And with his hit songs, "Killing Me Softly" sung by Roberta Flack, "Ready to Take a Chance Again" sung by Barry Manilow, and Jim Croce's "I Got a Name," Fox's melodies were heard in millions of homes.

But if you look beyond the golden trophies, you realize Charles Fox, now 69, is a loving father, husband and grandfather who is completely unaffected by fame.

"When we moved here in 1969 we didn't know uptown from downtown. I was commuting back and forth from New York to L.A., so in order for us to keep the family together we decided that we needed to move permanently," the soft-spoken Fox said as we sat down on the couch in his studio. "We needed a place to start school. We found a house that had enough room for three children and we said, Fine, we're home."

Growing up, his children Robbie, David, and Lisa were aware of their father's fame. For about 10 years, whenever they turned on the radio the chances were good that they'd hear "Killing Me Softly" or "I Got a Name."

Robbie said that when he was in college and he would walk into his fraternity,   Happy Days or the Love Boat seemingly were always on the television.

"In my prime growing-up years, he was as busy as anyone in show business, or any business," Robbie said of his dad. "He had about eight or nine shows on the air at the same time, not counting his movies and songwriting and even ballet work. So his secret was he never slept.

"I mean, for 12 years he stayed in his soundproof room and only came out long enough to make espresso, and then he'd go back in the room until the wee hours of the morning. This was cool until high school when we'd try to sneak in the house at 3 in the morning without anyone knowing, and sure enough, there was old Charlie in the kitchen squeezing a little bit of lemon into his espresso."           

Even on the day of our interview, Fox was drinking a cup of coffee at 3 p.m., and I imagine it wasn't his first cup, considering he had another interview earlier that morning.

The work hasn't died down for Fox, but neither has his family bond. Robbie and David live just a mile away in Encino and visit their father all the time. From family dinners and Hanukkah parties to Tuesday night tennis matches and Thursday night basketball games, Fox is constantly surrounded by his children, his friends and now his grandchildren.

"One time at my school I brought him in for career day," Fox's 12-year-old grandson, Jack, said. "It was really cool to have him come in and speak to 60 musical theater kids in my class. And when he played some of the songs, everyone was singing along. It was so cool."

"I wonder if they know how cool it really is," said Robbie, Jack's father. "I wonder if they know that people spend their whole lives trying to get one song recognized, but to have 20 is remarkable."

Incidentally, Jack's best friend from kindergarten was a boy named Ethan whose grandfather, Tom Bosley, starred in Happy Days as the father, Howard Cunningham.

Yet, Robbie said, "Neither knew what [Happy Days] was. All they knew was that their grandfathers were always in the stands watching every Encino Little League game and basketball game."

To Jack, Grandpa is just grandpa. Fox didn't force his children or grandchildren to learn piano or concentrate on music. Robbie's 14-year-old daughter, Olivia, was the only one who took piano lessons with her grandfather.

"She was his only student before he started teaching graduate composition at UCLA five years ago," Robbie said. "They would have piano lessons, and then after five years when she started getting restless they converted it into a French lesson. And they have that bond too."

But Jack is the first person in the family with an innate passion for music. He picked up the guitar when he was 6 years old and they haven't been able to take it out of his hands since, Robbie said. He plays in his school jazz band and says he wants to be a famous guitarist when he grows up.

"We always say that maybe it skips a generation," Robbie said.

Fox also began learning music at a young age. He started piano lessons when he was 8 years old. "I think the biggest difference is that I really enjoyed playing the piano," Fox said. "I used to run home from school to practice. I don't think most kids did that."

In those days, Fox said, he didn't have the melodic mind or ear that he has today. He had to read the music and "play what was on the paper in order to hear it."

"But now people always ask me, 'Do you just hear it?' I hear it, but hearing it isn't the only answer because I can hear it in a lot of different ways. I can hear this melodic line, I can hear that melodic line, I can hear two flutes playing a melody, or I can hear a flute and an oboe," Fox said between sips of coffee. "So just hearing it isn't enough. I have to also decide how I want it and what my choices are and how I need it to happen musically in terms of the form and composition."

It took years of training and practice for Fox to develop his talent. At 18, he left his parents in the Bronx and traveled to France to study for two years at the American Conservatory in Fontainebleau with the famed Nadia Boulanger, the influential composer, conductor and teacher who also taught Aaron Copland, Quincy Jones and hundreds of others.

"During those two years, I wrote letters home to my parents very often," he said as he brought over a shoebox full of letters written on pale blue paper, in red-and-blue-bordered air-mail envelopes with par avion stamps. "They were very long, very descriptive letters about my life in Paris, about my life in music, about my teacher, about everything I saw around me."

Those letters were the foundation of Fox's new autobiography, aptly titled "Killing Me Softly: My Life in Music," in which he recalls his successful career, which is still going strong.

Fox was recently commissioned by the Polish government to write a new composition to celebrate Chopin's 200th birthday. At the beginning of the month, he collaborated with Hal David and introduced "90210 Beverly Hills," the official theme song of the city. He also appears in and composed the music for a new documentary, 100 Voices—A Journey Home, that highlights the rich history of Jewish culture in Poland, the birthplace of cantorial music. The film is playing in select theaters around the country for one night only, on Sept. 21.

"It's always been a matter of filling a request–a job, if you will. And lately in the last few years I've been requested to write more classical compositions," Fox said. "I don't wait for inspiration, to be honest with you. If I were to wait for inspiration, I'd never write anything again. I go to work like anyone else goes to work. I wake up in the morning and get dressed; I go sit at my piano or my desk."

Despite all his accomplishments, awards and continued productivity, he doesn't count music as his biggest success. When I asked him to name his greatest work, he said: "My family."