Titanic Composer James Horner Dies in Plane Crash
James Horner, the consummate film composer known for his heart-tugging scores for Field of Dreams, Braveheart and Titanic, for which he won two Academy Awards, died Monday in a plane crash near Santa Barbara. He was 61. His death was confirmed by Sylvia Patrycja, who is identified on Horner's film music page as his assistant. "We have lost an amazing person with a huge heart and unbelievable talent," Patrycja wrote on Facebook on Monday. "He died doing what he loved. Thank you for all your support and love and see you down the road.", Horner was piloting the small aircraft when it crashed into a remote area about 60 miles north of Santa Barbara, officials said. An earlier report noted that the plane, which was registered to the composer, had gone down, but the pilot had not been identified. For his work on the 1997 best picture winner Titanic, directed by James Cameron, Horner captured the Oscar for original dramatic score, and he nabbed another Academy Award for original song shared with lyricist Will Jennings for "My Heart Will Go On," performed by Celine Dion. "My job  and it's something I discuss with Jim all the time  is to make sure at every turn of the film it's something the audience can feel with their heart," Horner said in a 2009 interview with the Los Angeles Times. "When we lose a character, when somebody wins, when somebody loses, when someone disappears  at all times I'm keeping track, constantly, of what the heart is supposed to be feeling. That is my primary role.", His score for Titanic sold a whopping 27 million copies worldwide. His fruitful partnership with Cameron also netted him Oscar noms for original score for the blockbusters Aliens 1986 and Avatar 2009. The pair reportedly were also at work on Avatar sequels. The Los Angeles native earned 10 Oscar noms in all, also being recognized for his work on two other best picture winners Braveheart 1995 and A Beautiful Mind 2001. He also received noms for An American Tail 1986, Field of Dreams 1989, Apollo 13 1995 and House of Sand and Fog 2003. Always busy, Horner has three films coming out soon Southpaw, the boxing drama that stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Rachel McAdams and is due in theaters in July Jean-Jacques Annaud's Wolf Totem, out in September and The 33, a drama based on the 2010 mining disaster in Chile that's set for November. His lengthy film rsum includes The Lady in Red 1979, Wolfen 1981, Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan 1982 and Star Trek III The Search for Spock 1983, Red Heat 1988, Glory 1989, The Rocketeer 1991, Patriot Games 1992, Searching for Bobby Fischer 1993, Jumanji 1995, How the Grinch Stole Christmas 2000, Troy 2004 and The Amazing Spider-Man 2012. His father was two-time Oscar-winning art director/set designer Harry Horner The Heiress, The Hustler. Horner spoke about the state of his career in a December interview with David Hocquet. "I'm much choosier," he said.' "I don't want to be doing these movies that now 85 or 90 composers want, as opposed to six. And now all these movies, action movies. I don't get offered all the movies obviously, but I see a lot of them and I do get asked to do a lot of them, and I just know they're not asking me to do something that I can do something original, they're asking me to do a formula and I'm too rebellious.", https//www.facebook.com/SylviaPWells/posts/819510868117814