Shomporko Desk:-Ennio Morricone, the Oscar-winning Italian composer who created the coyote-howl theme for the iconic Spaghetti Western “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” and regularly frequenting soundtracks for such great Hollywood Hollywood gangster movies as “The Untouchables” and the epic “Once Upon A Time In America,” died Monday. He was 91.
Morricone’s longtime lawyer, Giorgio Assumma, said “the Maestro,” as he was known, died in a Rome hospital of intricacies following medical procedure after an ongoing fall in which he broke a leg bone.
During a career that spanned decades and earned him an Oscar for lifetime achievement in 2007, Morricone collaborated with some of the most renowned Italian and Hollywood directors, in movies including “The Untouchables” by Brian de Palma, “The Hateful Eight” by Quentin Tarantino and “The Battle of Algiers” by Gillo Pontecorvo.
Born in Rome on Nov. 10, 1928, Morricone was the oldest of the five children. His father was a trumpet player.
After studying trumpet and composition at the Conservatory of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in the Italian capital, he started working as a trumpeter and then as an arranger for record companies.
Morricone received his first Oscar nomination for the original score with “Days Of Heaven,” a 1978 movie by U.S. director Terence Malick. Besides “The Hateful Eight,” the others were for “The Mission” (1986), “The Untouchables” (1987), “Bugsy” (1991) and “Malena” (2000).
In total, he produced more than 400 original scores for feature films.
Photo credit: TIZIANA FABI / AFP
News source: The Associated Press
