George Fenton, Oscar-nominated British composer for more than 100 films, dies aged 76

Fenton’s successes include scores for Gandhi, Groundhog Day and 18 Ken Loach films, plus BBC TV news themes, Blue Planet and more

George Fenton, the British composer who earned five Oscar nominations for scores to films such as Gandhi and Dangerous Liaisons, has died aged 76.

Often in repeated partnerships with directors such as Stephen Frears, Ken Loach, Nora Ephron, Richard Attenborough, Nicholas Hytner and Neil Jordan, Fenton amassed a large and remarkable body of work that stretched across more than 100 feature films, plus documentary, theatre, TV news and more.

But after work as an arranger and musical director in theatre alongside his acting, in 1974 he was commissioned to compose music for a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Twelfth Night, beginning a series of collaborations with the RSC.

His first collaboration with Attenborough came in 1982 with Gandhi, earning Fenton his first Oscar nomination, shared with Ravi Shankar. His next two nominations were for his next film with Attenborough, Cry Freedom, where Fenton was nominated for best original score, and best original song for its title track, shared with Jonas Gwangwa. Fenton shared vocals on that song, and performed it at the Academy Awards.

He also scored the Attenborough films Shadowlands, In Love and War and Grey Owl.

Attenborough’s brother, the naturalist and TV documentarian David Attenborough, was another client of Fenton’s, who composed music for the landmark series The Blue Planet, Planet Earth and Frozen Planet, plus Wildlife on One, Natural World, The Trials of Life and Life in the Freezer. Fenton later developed live concert formats for Planet Earth and Frozen Planet.

He scored all of the feature films by Hytner: The Madness of King George, The Crucible, The Object of My Affection, Center Stage, The History Boys and The Lady in the Van. With Jordan, he scored The Company of Wolves, High Spirits and We’re No Angels, and with Ephron, Mixed Nuts, You’ve Got Mail, Lucky Numbers and Bewitched.

Beyond those regular clients, Fenton’s composition can be heard in hit movies such as Groundhog Day, Stage Beauty, Clockwise, Memphis Belle and two films by Terry Gilliam: The Fisher King (earning another Oscar nomination) and The Zero Theorem.