Famed for his lush, sweeping scores for films including #Braveheart, #Apollo 13, and #Titanic, the prolific composer James Horner was born in Los Angeles on August 14, 1953. Educated at London's Royal College of Music as well as local universities USC and UCLA, he landed his first motion picture assignments during the 1970s, scoring B-movies like #The Lady in Red, #Humanoids of the Deep, and #Battle Beyond the Stars for producer Roger Corman's New World organization. By 1982, Horner had moved on to major studio fare including #48 Hrs. and #Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and four years later he notched his first Academy Award nominations for his score to the science fiction classic #Aliens as well as for the song "Somewhere Out There," from the animated picture #An American Tail. In 1989, Horner earned a second Oscar nomination for his score to #Field of Dreams, that same year winning a Grammy for his work on the Civil War drama #Glory; in 1995 he was honored with two more Academy Award noms, for #Braveheart and #Apollo 13. Horner finally struck Oscar gold in 1997, taking home statuettes for his score to the blockbuster #Titanic as well as the film's original song "My Heart Will Go On," a hit for Celine Dion. After writing scores for movies like #Commando and #New World, Film Music Masterworks: Original Soundtracks, which contained pieces from some of Horner's best-known work (#Apollo 13, #Braveheart, #Willow, and of course, #Titanic, among others), was issued in 2006.

~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi