Mike Fleming

UPDATES (with statements below)
The composer Marvin Hamlisch passed away at age 68 after a short illness. He was a giant in film scoring, responsible for many of the most distinctive scores in an era of films that included The Way We Were, Woody Allen’s Bananas and Take The Money And Run, Same Time Next Year, Save The Tiger, Sophie’s Choice and The Spy Who Loved Me. He was also part of the team that provided the music for The Sting. On the stage, his credits included a Tony Award earned for scoring Broadway’s A Chorus Line. Add that to three Oscars and a Pulitzer, and that is quite a career. Hamlisch was planning to go to work and score Steven Soderbergh’s Liberace pic Behind the Candelabra when he took ill. Hamlisch previously scored Soderbergh’s The Informant!

“I’m devastated. He was my dear friend. He’s been in my life ever since the first day I met him in 1963, when he was my rehearsal pianist for “Funny Girl.” He played at my wedding in 1998… and recently for me at a benefit for women’s heart disease. The world will remember Marvin for his brilliant musical accomplishments, from “A Chorus Line” to “The Way We Were,” and so many others, but when I think of him now, it was his brilliantly quick mind, his generosity, and delicious sense of humor that made him a delight to be around. Just last night, I was trying to reach him, to tell him how much I loved him, and that I wanted to use an old song of his, that I had just heard for the first time. He was a true musical genius, but above all that, he was a beautiful human being. I will truly miss him”, Barbra Streisand

“He was more than our collaborator. He was our beloved friend. He was family. The world will miss his music, his humor, his genius. We will miss him every day for the rest of our lives”, Alan and Marilyn Bergman.