Composer James Horner, who won two Oscars for the music of Titanic and scored such other blockbusters as Avatar, Braveheart, Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind, died Monday in a plane crash in Ventura County, according to Variety. He was 61.
The two-seater single-engine S312 Tucano crashed north of Santa Barbara about 9:30 Monday morning and sparked a brush fire that was extinguished by country fire crews.
Horner was one of the most popular film composers of the last 30 years, and his Titanic soundtrack – with its hit Celine Dion song, My Heart Will Go On, written with Will Jennings – became the biggest-selling movie-score album of all time, selling an estimated 30 million units worldwide.
He scored more than 100 films in all and was often in demand for big popcorn movies. Most recent were The Amazing Spider-Man and The Karate Kid remake, but he also scored How the Grinch Stole Christmas, The Perfect Storm, Clear and Present Danger, Honey I Shrunk the Kids and Aliens.
In the 1990s he added The Rocketeer, Sneakers, Patriot Games, Legends of the Fall and Ransom to his resume before hitting the jackpot, both financially and awards-wise, with Titanic. In addition to his two Oscars, he won song and score Golden Globes for the James Cameron film.
He received eight other Oscar nominations, including seven for the scores of Aliens, Field of Dreams, Apollo 13, Braveheart, A Beautiful Mind, House of Sand and Fog and Avatar.
He earned four more Grammys including one for instrumental composition for 1989’s Glory and three for Titanic including Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
