James Roy Horner (August 14, 1953 – June 22, 2015) was an American film composer and conductor. He worked on more than 160 film and television productions between 1978 and 2015. He was known for the integration of choral and electronic elements alongside traditional orchestrations, and for his use of motifs associated with Celtic music.[1][2]
Horner, who was an avid pilot, was killed in a single-fatality crash while flying his Short Tucano turboprop aircraft. He was 61 years old.[7] The scores for his final three films, Southpaw (2015), The 33 (2015) and The Magnificent Seven (2016), were all completed and released posthumously.
Early life and education
Horner was born on August 14, 1953, in Los Angeles, California, to Jewish immigrant parents.[8][9][10][11] His father, Harry Horner, was born in Holice, Czech Republic, then a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He emigrated to the United States in 1935 and worked as a set designer and art director.[12][13] His mother, Joan Ruth (née Frankel), was born to a Canadian family. His brother Christopher is a writer and documentary filmmaker.[11]
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.[19]
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 composed the 2006–2011 theme for the CBS Evening News, which was introduced during the debut of anchor Katie Couric on September 5, 2006.[26] 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."[27]
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.[22] 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.[timeframe?] 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]."[28]
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.[29]
After Avatar, Horner wrote the score for the 2010 version of The Karate Kid, replacing Atli Örvarsson.[30] 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 did not return to compose the score for the sequel because he did not like how the movie resulted in comparison to the first movie, calling it "dreadful."[31] 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.[32]
At the time of his death, Horner had scored two films yet to be released:[33]
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.[35]
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.[36]
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.
Several critics have noted stark similarities between Braveheart's "Main Theme" and an earlier theme song, Kaoru Wada's "Pai Longing" from the 1991 Japanese anime series 3×3 Eyes.[49][50][51]
On at least one occasion, Horner's musical "borrowing" almost led to litigation. Horner's main title for Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989) incorporates cues from the score by Nino Rota from Federico Fellini's film Amarcord (1973) and Raymond Scott's piece "Powerhouse B" (1937), the latter often referenced in Carl Stalling's Warner Bros. cartoon scores. Scott's piece was used without payment or credit, leading his estate to threaten legal action against Disney. Disney paid an undisclosed sum in an out-of-court settlement and changed the film's cue sheets to credit Scott.[52][53]
Personal life
Horner was also a qualified private pilot and owned several small airplanes.[54][55] His studio was filled with small automatons and objects which he purchased and collected over time.[56] In a documentary produced after his death, Horner's wife Sara stated that he described himself as having Asperger syndrome; according to Sara "He would say himself, and did at the end of his life, that he had Asperger's, and he definitely had a different kind of neurological wiring."[57]
Post-accident investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) revealed that the leading cause of the accident was Horner's inability to maintain clearance from terrain during low-level airwork.[63] During the flight, Horner contacted the Southern California Air Route Traffic Control Center, from whom he received advisories while flying over the Chumash Wilderness area.[63] The NTSB interviewed two witnesses of the flight, who were in their homes when Horner flew over them; one said that the plane was flying at between 500 and 750 feet (150 and 230 m). FAA radar data showed that the plane had made multiple low-altitude turns and performed rapid altitude change maneuvers, flying low through Quatal Canyon and skimming mountain ridgelines by less than 100 feet (30 m).[64]
In addition to Horner's failing to maintain clearance, the NTSB determined there were other key factors that led to the accident. Foremost among these was Horner's use of prescription medications for pain relief and headaches. Toxicology testing found butalbitalcodeine and ethanol in Horner's body (although the ethanol may have been produced by microbial activity after his death).[64]
Tributes
Contemporaries and collaborators around the world paid their respects to Horner, including composers Hans Zimmer, John Williams, Paul Williams and Alan Menken, and directors Ron Howard[65] and James Cameron. Horner was reported to have been committed to the Avatar franchise; Cameron said "There's so much music he could have done. We were looking forward to our next gig."[66] Horner's assistant, Sylvia Patrycja, wrote on her Facebook page, "We have lost an amazing person with a huge heart and unbelievable talent [who] died doing what he loved."[67] Many celebrities, including Russell Crowe, Diane Warren and Celine Dion, also gave their condolences.[68] Dion, who sang "My Heart Will Go On", one of Horner's most popular compositions, which is considered Dion's signature song,[69] wrote on her website that she and husband René Angélil were "shaken by the tragic death" of their friend and "will always remember his kindness and great talent that changed [her] career".[70]Leona Lewis, who recorded Horner's "I See You" for Avatar, said working with him "was one of the biggest moments of my life."[71] The final films for which he composed the score, Southpaw, The 33 and The Magnificent Seven, were all dedicated to his memory, as was the film Hacksaw Ridge. Avatar: The Way of Water, which Horner was set to work on before he died, was also dedicated to his memory (as well as actor Bill Paxton, who died in 2017 and worked with Horner and Cameron on Aliens and Titanic).
Legacy
Horner's extensive papers and archives are preserved and available for researchers at the UCLACharles E. Young Research Library Special Collections and Archives.[72] The film, The World of James Horner – Hollywood in Vienna (2013), directed by Sandra Tomek was dedicated to Horner.[73]
In October 2013, Horner received the Max Steiner Award at the Hollywood in Vienna Gala, an award given for extraordinary achievement in the field of film music.[77]