James Horner

Composer

James Horner was born in Los Angeles, California, United States on August 14th, 1953 and is the Composer. At the age of 61, James Horner biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.

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Date of Birth
August 14, 1953
Nationality
United States
Place of Birth
Los Angeles, California, United States
Death Date
Jun 22, 2015 (age 61)
Zodiac Sign
Leo
Networth
$15 Million
Profession
Composer, Conductor, Film Score Composer, Musician, Orchestrator
James Horner Height, Weight, Eye Color and Hair Color

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James Horner Religion, Education, and Hobbies
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James Horner Spouse(s), Children, Affair, Parents, and Family
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James Horner Career

Horner's first credits as a feature-film composer were for B-movie director and producer Roger Corman. 1979's The Lady in Red, was followed by 1980's Humanoids from the Deep and Battle Beyond the Stars. As his work gained notice in Hollywood, Horner was invited to take on larger projects.

Horner's big break came in 1982 when he was asked to score Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. It established him as an A-list Hollywood composer. Director Nicholas Meyer quipped that Horner was hired because the studio could no longer afford the first Trek movie's composer, Jerry Goldsmith; but that by the time Meyer returned to the franchise with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the studio could not afford Horner either.

Horner continued writing high-profile film scores in the 1980s, including 48 Hrs. (1982), Krull (1983), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984), Commando (1985), Cocoon (1985), Aliens (1986), Captain EO (1986), *batteries not included (1987), Willow (1988), Glory and Field of Dreams (both 1989). Cocoon was the first of his many collaborations with director Ron Howard.

In 1987, Horner's original score for Aliens brought him his first Academy Award nomination. "Somewhere Out There," which he co-composed and co-wrote with Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil for An American Tail, was also nominated that year for Best Original Song.

Throughout the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, Horner wrote orchestral scores for family films (particularly those produced by Steven Spielberg's Amblin Entertainment), with credits for An American Tail (1986); The Land Before Time (1988); The Rocketeer, Once Around and An American Tail: Fievel Goes West (1991); Once Upon a Forest and We're Back! A Dinosaur's Story (1993); The Pagemaster (1994); Casper, Jumanji and Balto (1995); Mighty Joe Young (1998); and How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000).

Horner scored six films in 1995, including his commercially successful and critically acclaimed works for Braveheart and Apollo 13, both of which received Academy Award nominations.

Horner's biggest critical and financial success came in 1997 with his score for James Cameron's Titanic. At the 70th Academy Awards, Horner received the Oscar for Best Original Dramatic Score, and shared the Oscar for Best Original Song with co-writer Will Jennings for "My Heart Will Go On". The film's score and song also won three Grammy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards. (Ten years earlier, Horner had vowed never to work with Cameron again, referring to the highly stressful scoring sessions for Aliens as "a nightmare.")

After Titanic, Horner continued to compose for major productions, including The Perfect Storm, A Beautiful Mind, Enemy at the Gates, The Mask of Zorro, The Legend of Zorro, House of Sand and Fog and Bicentennial Man. He also worked on smaller projects such as Iris, Radio and Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius. He received his eighth and ninth Academy Award nominations for A Beautiful Mind (2001) and House of Sand and Fog (2003), but lost on both occasions to composer Howard Shore.

Horner composed the 2006–2011 theme for the CBS Evening News, which was introduced during the debut of anchor Katie Couric on September 5, 2006. He wrote various treatments of the theme, explaining, "One night the show might begin with the Iranians obtaining a nuclear device, and another it might be something about a flower show... The tone needs to match the news."

Horner collaborated again with James Cameron on his 2009 film Avatar, which became the highest-grossing film of all time, surpassing Cameron's own Titanic. Horner worked exclusively on Avatar for over two years. He said, "Avatar has been the most difficult film I have worked on, and the biggest job I have undertaken... I work from four in the morning to about ten at night, and that's been my way of life since March. That's the world I'm in now, and it makes you feel estranged from everything. I'll have to recover from that and get my head out of [it]."

Avatar brought Horner his tenth Academy Award nomination, as well as nominations for the Golden Globe Award, British Academy Film Award and Grammy Award, all of which he lost to Michael Giacchino for Up.

After Avatar, Horner wrote the score for the 2010 version of The Karate Kid, replacing Atli Örvarsson. In 2011, he scored Cristiada (also known as For Greater Glory), which was released a year later; and Black Gold. In 2012 he scored The Amazing Spider-Man, starring Andrew Garfield. In an interview on his website, Horner revealed that he didn't return to compose the score for the sequel because he didn't like how the movie resulted in comparison to the first movie, calling it "dreadful." He was replaced by Hans Zimmer. James Horner's theme for The Amazing Spider-Man would later be incorporated into the film Spider-Man: No Way Home, composed by Michael Giacchino.

In early 2015, after a three-year hiatus, Horner wrote the music for the adventure film Wolf Totem, his fourth collaboration with director Jean-Jacques Annaud.

At the time of his death, Horner had scored two films yet to be released:

In July 2015, a month after his death, it was discovered Horner had also written the score for the 2016 remake of The Magnificent Seven, planning it as a surprise.

Horner's scores are also heard in trailers for other films. The climax of Bishop's Countdown, from his score for Aliens, ranks as the 5th most commonly used soundtrack cue in trailers.

Horner also wrote the theme music for the Horsemen P-51 Aerobatic Team, and appears in "The Horsemen Cometh", a documentary about the team and the P-51 Mustang fighter plane. The theme is heard at the team's airshow performances.

Pas de Deux, a double concerto for violin, cello and Orchestra with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, was premiered on November 12, 2014 by Mari and Håkon Samuelsen, with the orchestra conducted by Vasily Petrenko. Horner also composed Collage, a concerto for four horns, premiered on March 27, 2015 at London's Royal Festival Hall by the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jaime Martín, with soloists David Pyatt, John Ryan, James Thatcher and Richard Watkins. Two early works, Spectral Shimmers (1978) and A Forest Passage (2000), are to be performed and recorded for the first time in 2021.

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