Marvlin Hamlisch, Rest in Peace

A great musi­cal mind and tal­ent, lost far too young.

Mar­vin Ham­lisch, the sin­gu­larly pro­duc­tive and sen­sa­tion­ally dec­o­rated com­poser of musi­cals like “A Cho­rus Line” and songs like “The Way We Were,” has died, The Asso­ci­ated Press reported. A fam­ily spokesman told The A.P. that Mr. Ham­lisch died in Los Ange­les on Mon­day after a brief ill­ness but did not pro­vide addi­tional details. Mr. Ham­lisch was 68.

In a career that spanned film, tele­vi­sion, the­ater and recorded music, Mr. Ham­lisch won seem­ingly every award avail­able in each medium. He was a 12-time Acad­emy Award nom­i­nee, for his score and song con­tri­bu­tions to films like “The Spy Who Loved Me” and “Sophie’s Choice,” and a three-time Oscar win­ner for the score of “The Sting” as well as the score from “The Way We Were” and its title song (with lyrics by Alan and Mar­i­lyn Bergman). He won four Emmy Awards and four Grammy Awards, as well as a Tony Award for his score to the musi­cal “A Cho­rus Line.” That musi­cal, which blended bouncy, brassy songs like “One” and “Dance: Ten; Looks: Three” with melan­choly num­bers like “At the Bal­let,” also won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1976.

As recently as last month, Mr. Ham­lisch was work­ing on a musi­cal adap­ta­tion of the Jerry Lewis com­edy “The Nutty Pro­fes­sor,” for which he wrote the score. Accord­ing to his biog­ra­phy at his offi­cial Web site, he held the title of prin­ci­pal pops con­duc­tor for the Pitts­burgh Sym­phony Orches­tra, the Mil­wau­kee Sym­phony Orches­tra, the Dal­las Sym­phony Orches­tra, the Pasadena Sym­phony and Pops, the Seat­tle Sym­phony and the San Diego Symphony.

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