George Fenton, the composer behind the music for Gandhi, Groundhog Day and The Fisher King, has died aged 76. His family said he died unexpectedly and is survived by his wife Amanda, his former wife Jane, three children and six grandchildren. Over his career he received five Oscar nominations, including for The Remains of the Day and Cry Freedom.
Born George Howe in Bromley, Kent, in 1949, Fenton first planned to perform. He turned down university and music college, and in 1968 appeared in Alan Bennett’s first West End play, Forty Years On, taking his mother’s maiden name because union rules did not allow two actors with the same name. He also understudied the show’s musical director, Carl Davis. A year later he signed a record deal and reached the top 10 in Sweden with a cover of The Beatles’ Maxwell’s Silver Hammer, though his solo career did not last. In the mid-1970s he had a recurring role as the soldier Martin Gimbel in ITV’s Emmerdale Farm.
Directors kept casting him in parts that required an instrument, so he moved into music full time. His first job as composer and musical director was a Royal Shakespeare Company Twelfth Night in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1974. Eight years later, still almost entirely self-taught and on only his fourth film, he was nominated for an Oscar for Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi, working with Ravi Shankar on the score. For Cry Freedom, about Steve Biko, he worked with South African jazz musician Jonas Gwangwa and earned nominations for score and song.
British television audiences heard his work daily. He wrote themes for the BBC’s One O’Clock, Six O’Clock and Nine O’Clock News, Newsnight and Breakfast Time, as well as Radio 4’s PM, and scored The Jewel in the Crown and Bergerac. He composed the music for David Attenborough’s The Blue Planet, Planet Earth and Frozen Planet, winning Bafta, Emmy and Ivor Novello awards for Blue Planet. His film work also included You’ve Got Mail, Sweet Home Alabama and The Lady in the Van.
Fenton scored 18 films for Ken Loach, more than any other composer, among them I, Daniel Blake and the 2006 Palme d’Or winner The Wind That Shakes the Barley. He founded the Association of Professional Composers, which later merged with The Ivors Academy, and was one of a handful of musicians to receive the Academy’s fellowship. He taught as a visiting professor at the Royal College of Music and the University of Nottingham, and was made a CBE for services to music in 2023.
