The world of television and film has lost a major figure with the death of American composer Mark Snow, who was behind the iconic theme tune to The X Files.

Snow, born Martin Fulterman in New York, grew up in Brooklyn. In the 1960s, he started the band Emil and the Detectives with his roommate at the Juilliard School, Michael Kamen, who would go on to work with Pink Floyd and become a movie composer known for films like “Die Hard” and “Lethal Weapon.”

Mark Snow, the veteran television composer who turned “The X-Files ” theme into an unlikely chart hit in the 1990s, died Friday at his home in Connecticut. He was 78.