The death of famed composer Monty Norman was announced today. The musician’s official website detailed that he passed away today on July 11th at age 94 after a “short illness”.
Norman, born in 1928, was a British composer whose best known work was the “James Bond Theme”, which he composed in 1962 for the James Bond film Dr. No starring the sixth actor to portray Bond, Sean Connery. The musical piece went on to become the official theme music for the entire franchise.
Controversy arose not long after when John Barry, the young man who had arranged the theme, claimed the rights to the music. This spurred a libel suit in 1997 in which Norman was named the rightful owner of the music by the court and was awarded 30,000 pounds in addition to court costs.
Before his time composing big film scores, Norman was a singer and even adapted as well as wrote a couple of West End theatrical successes. But, nonetheless, his work for the Bond films remain his most notable contribution to music. In 1977 Norman won the Ivor Novello Award from the Performing Rights Society for the theme music that was still going strong, a whopping fifteen years after its initial release.
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