A well-established musician and impresario who booked combos into local venues like Cetrella or the Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay, O’Neill also wears the mantle of documentary film score composer.
“Pete McCloskey – Leading from the Front,” a 57-minute documentary on the life of the congressman, is set to air on PBS in early July. All the film’s music was composed by O’Neill, with the exception of one piece titled “Saigon Bride” that legendary singer Joan Baez, a friend of McCloskey, licensed at no charge for use in the documentary.
 Moss Beach resident Michael O'Neill has scored a film about the life and times of one of his political heroes, Pete McCloskey. |
“I’ve always been a big admirer of Pete McCloskey. He’s one of my big heroes,” said O’Neill, citing McCloskey’s anti-war stance and environmentalism as big reasons for his support and for why he wrote the score.
The film documents McCloskey’s life, beginning with his early childhood growing up in Southern California, and goes on to other milestones.
It touches on McCloskey’s involvement with the Korean War, of which he was a decorated veteran, and his stance against the Vietnam War. It chronicles his launch of a seminal environmental law firm and immersion in civil rights in the San Francisco Bay Area.
It covers his political life including his successful campaign against Shirley Temple Black, a campaign in which O’Neill, then in his teens and early 20s, worked as a deputy registrar. “I got Democrats to change their votes to Republican, so they could vote for Pete in the primary, so he could beat Shirley Temple Black,” said O’Neill. “And he did.”
The film also covers McCloskey’s presidential bid against Richard Nixon and his run against Rep. Richard Pombo in California’s 11th congressional district.
“His Republican values were Abraham Lincoln’s and Theodore Roosevelt’s values,” said O’Neill.
It also includes McCloskey’s attempts to negotiate an even-handed Middle East policy, and covers his two marriages.
Along with O’Neill’s score, the film features a voice-over track by Paul Newman, shortly before the actor’s death. Fellow film giant Robert Redford also contributed a clip from “All the President’s Men,” about the Watergate break-in.
O’Neill was no stranger to film scoring before this film came along.
A San Diego native who started with the clarinet when he was 7, he put himself through college by playing in jazz clubs. He became a biologist — specifically an insect physiologist — and worked in research with the USDA until 1979, when he turned to music full time.
In the 1980s and 1990s, he scored other documentary films, and did similar work for television shows, the Discovery Channel, “Bob Euker’s Wacky World of Sports,” National Geographic and industrial films. But, citing the stresses of deadlines with air dates, he retired until this film came along.
He crafted a score that is largely symphonic or sounding like a military band with jazz touches, utilizing synthesizers and solo piano, and took his cues from the subject matter. “I was mostly intuiting the feeling of the thing,” he said. The clip of Joan Baez music came through O’Neill’s landlord, Jan Tiura, a friend of Baez, and O’Neill wrote the musical lead-in.
The documentary will air on KQED 9HD at 6 p.m. Sunday, July 5, on KQED Life at 7 p.m. Monday, July 6 and 1 a.m. Tuesday, July 7, and on KQED World at 10 p.m. Sunday, July 5 and 4 a.m. Monday, July 6.
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