Henry Mancini Dies At 70 Of Cancer -- He Composed `Moon River'

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. - Henry Mancini, the four-time Oscar-winning composer who produced such songs as "Moon River," "Charade" and "Days of Wine and Roses," died today, his publicist said. He was 70.

Mancini died of complications of liver and pancreatic cancer, said publicist Linda Dozeretz. He was at home with his wife, Ginny.

Mancini had been undergoing treatment for cancer for several months and had been hospitalized for blood clots.

Still, he continued working in a recording studio with lyricist Leslie Bricusse on a stage version of "Victor-Victoria," based on the Academy Award-winning core of the 1982 film that starred Julie Andrews and Robert Preston.

Mancini wrote scores that were thoroughly hummable. His themes for the "Pink Panther" comedies and the "Peter Gunn" TV series became classics.

Nominated for Oscars 18 times, he won Academy Awards for the songs "Moon River" (1962) and "Days of Wine and Roses" (1963) and the scores for "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (1962) and "Victor-Victoria" (1982). Johnny Mercer wrote the lyrics for both songs.

Mancini also was a prolific recording artist, collecting 20 Grammys and six gold albums.

He wrote and conducted the music for more than 80 movies and earned a reputation for being fast and good.

"I'm usually the last man on the totem pole," Mancini remarked in a 1985 interview. "Except for the sound effects and final sound mix, the score is the last element to be added to a picture.

"I get a cassette of the final film, and I like to see it several times before I start to work. It's sort of like going through a fog to reach your destination."

"I'm not a songwriter," he once claimed. "My songs grow out of the score. Many scores I do have no songs at all."

Mancini composed scores for all Blake Edwards films, including "Breakfast at Tiffany's," "Days of Wine and Roses," "The Great Race," "Darling Lili," "10," "S.O.B." "Sunset" and the "Pink Panther" series. Mancini's other scores include "Hatari," "Charade," "Arabesque," "Home Before Dark," "The Molly Maguires," "The Hawaiians," "Oklahoma Crude," "Silver Streak," "W.C. Fields and Me" and "The Great Waldo Pepper."

His early movie career was at Universal Pictures, which hired him in 1952 to work on music for more than 100 movies from Abbott & Costello to horror thrillers and B Westerns.

At Universal, Mancini met Edwards, then a struggling writer. When Edwards was planning the TV detective series "Peter Gunn," he asked Mancini to write the score.

To epitomize the gritty urban feel of the series, Mancini wrote a pounding jazz score. It changed his career and influenced the course of film scoring.

In concerts, Mancini often played solos on the flute, a throwback to his earliest musical training.

Born in Cleveland, he was reared in the steel town of Aliquippa, Pa., where his father taught him to play the flute when Mancini was 8. He also took up piano and studied with a theater conductor, and began arranging music while still in his teens.

World War II interrupted his studies at the prestigious Juilliard School of Music in New York. He served overseas in the air corps and infantry.

After the war he was hired as pianist and arranger for the Glenn Miller-Tex Beneke orchestra.