George Fenton, the composer whose work ran from Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi to the BBC’s Blue Planet, has died at the age of 76. His family said he died unexpectedly on Monday. Fenton received five Oscar nominations in a career that also took in Groundhog Day, The Fisher King and the theme music for several BBC News programmes.
Born George Howe in Bromley, Kent, in 1949, he took up the electric guitar at seven and later studied the church organ, but turned down university and music college to become a performer. He appeared in Alan Bennett’s first West End play, Forty Years On, in 1968, adopting his mother’s maiden name because union rules did not allow two actors to share a name. In the mid-1970s he had a recurring role as the soldier Martin Gimbel in ITV’s Emmerdale Farm, and his first job as a composer and musical director came with a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Twelfth Night in 1974.
Gandhi, on which he worked with Ravi Shankar, was only his fourth film score and brought his first Oscar nomination while he was still almost entirely self-taught. Cry Freedom, written with the South African jazz musician Jonas Gwangwa, was nominated for both score and song, and The Remains of the Day brought another nomination. He also scored You’ve Got Mail, Sweet Home Alabama, The Lady in the Van and Mrs Henderson Presents, and worked with Ken Loach more than any other composer, on 18 films including I, Daniel Blake and The Wind That Shakes the Barley, which won the Palme d’Or in 2006.
On television he wrote music for The Jewel in the Crown, The Monocled Mutineer and Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads, along with themes for the One O’Clock, Six O’Clock and Nine O’Clock News, Newsnight and Breakfast Time. After Trials of Life in 1990, he scored David Attenborough’s The Blue Planet, Planet Earth and Frozen Planet. His Blue Planet music won Bafta, Emmy and Ivor Novello awards and later became a live show, The Blue Planet in Concert, performed by orchestras around the world.
Fenton 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, alongside Sir Elton John, Kate Bush and Bruce Springsteen. He was a visiting professor at the Royal College of Music and the University of Nottingham and was made a CBE in 2023. Speaking on Desert Island Discs about hearing musicians play his work for the first time, he said: “For a composer, that’s the biggest kick you can get.” He is survived by his wife Amanda, his former wife Jane, his children Gemma, Grace and Bridget, and six grandchildren.
