Miklos Rozsa obituary (Variety)

HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Three-time Oscar winner Miklos Rozsa died Thursday of pneumonia at Good Samaritan Hospital in L.A. He was 88.

The composer suffered from a nerve disorder; he'd had a previous stroke and had been on life support for about three weeks.

His 1982 autobiography A Double Life was titled after the 1947 pic that won him an Academy Award. His other Oscars were for Spellbound (1945) and 1959's Ben Hur.

Rozsa, born in Budapest on April 18, 1907, was a child prodigy who was playing the violin at age 5. He began scoring films in England and came to Hollywood in the early '40s.

Along with fellow composers Erich Wolfgang Korngold and Bernard Herrmann, who predominated in Hollywood in the '30s and '40s, Rozsa wrote lush, stirring scores influenced by European classical music.

He was a favorite of Billy Wilder's, collaborating on Five Graves to Cairo ('43), Double Indemnity ('44), The Lost Weekend ('45), The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes ('70) and 1978's Fedora.

After specializing in psychological dramas of the '40s, he moved into historical epics such as 1950's Quo Vadis, Ivanhoe ('52), Julius Caesar ('53), Knights of the Round Table ('54) and El Cid ('61).

Among his other works were The Four Feathers, The Thief of Baghdad, Jungle Book and Madame Bovary.

When pop music gained prominence in the '60s, the old school went out of style but Rozsa had a later resurgence, contributing outstanding scores to such varied pics as Providence, Time After Time and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid.

A private service is scheduled Monday at Forest Lawn Memorial Park Hollywood Hills.

Reuter/Variety