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Elmer Bernstein, the Academy Award-winning composer who created some of the most recognizable music in American films, died Wednesday at his home in Ojai after a lengthy illness, his publicist, Kathy Moulton, said. He was 82.
"He was the consummate composer. He was classically trained and could do it all," said Marilyn Bergman, president of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.
Bernstein, whose career spanned more than 50 years and included more than 200 films, was nominated for Oscars 14 times, winning in 1967 for "Thoroughly Modern Millie." Among his other nominated scores were "To Kill a Mockingbird," "The Magnificent Seven," "The Man With the Golden Arm," "True Grit," "The Age of Innocence" and, most recently, "Far From Heaven."
He also wrote for television, including "The Big Valley" in the 1960s and "Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law" in the 1970s, as well as many miniseries and TV documentaries. In 1963, he won an Emmy for "The Making of the President: 1960."
Bergman said Wednesday that Bernstein "was among a group of composers who stood in the pantheon of film composing." His scores for "The Man With the Golden Arm" and "The Magnificent Seven" are considered classics, she said, and his credit sequence work for "Mockingbird" "stands as one of the best main titles, visually and musically."
Bergman, a songwriter, said Bernstein composed much of his work in the 1960s, '70s and '80s, when motion picture scores were written to complement a specific film, and not with an eye to album sales outside the theater.
"The art of really scoring a film dramatically, where the composer is almost...