After recovering from a near-fatal illness, he worked as a staff trombonist for CBS, until his enlistment in the Army Air Corps in 1942 (stationed in Santa Ana with the Radio Production Unit). During the 1940s and early 1950s he worked as arranger and conductor for 20th Century-Fox under the auspices of
Alfred Newman. He left in 1953, encouraged by producer
Sheldon Leonard to pursue a career as a writer for television.