Ennio Morricone, one of the most renowned and iconic composers in the history of film, has passed away at 91 years old.
The New York Times reports that the Italian composer died on Monday, July 6, in Rome. Morricone’s lawyer, Giorgio Assumma, confirmed the composer’s passing, and noted that he was hospitalized last week after fracturing his femur in a fall.
Morricone was perhaps best known for his score for the 1966 Clint Eastwood classic The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, which is widely considered to be one of the finest film scores of all time. The main title theme and “The Ecstasy Of Gold” have even enjoyed success outside of the film. For example, Metallica covered the latter for the 2007 tribute album We All Love Ennio Morricone, and their rendition earned a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1PfrmCGFnk
Morricone was also known for much more than just that one film, though. His career lasted for over six decades, during which time he scored more than 500 movies. The final film that Morricone scored was 2016’s The Correspondence. Immediately before that, he scored Quentin Tarantino’s 2015 film The Hateful Eight, which won Morricone the Academy Award for Best Original Score that year, his first competitive Oscar.
