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André Previn dies at the age of 89

28 February 2019 23:57 (UTC +04:00)

The conductor and composer André Previn has died at the age of 89, ONA reports citing BBC.

His manager told the BBC he died at his home in New York on Thursday morning.

Previn is best known for ditching a lucrative career in Hollywood to pursue his love of classical music as a jazz pianist.

During his lifetime he won four Oscars - but many will remember him attempting to perform Grieg's piano concerto with Morecambe and Wise.

He was the legendary conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra who was married five times.

The jazz singer, Betty Bennett, became his first wife; the couple quickly had two daughters and, just as swiftly, split.

A few years later, the lyricist Dory Langan became his second wife and song-writing partner. Together they wrote Oscar-nominated numbers for the films Pepe (1960) and Two For the Seesaw (1962).

He won Academy Awards for the musicals Gigi and Porgy and Bess. And for the scores to Irma La Douce and My Fair Lady.

One of his more famous marriages was to actress and activist Mia Farrow, a movie star and former wife of Frank Sinatra, with whom Previn had three biological children.

They also adopted three other children, including Soon-Yi, who went on to marry Woody Allen, Farrow's partner - after her break-up with Previn.

Previn later married Heather Mary Hales, and they divorced 17 years later.

His final marriage, in 2002, was to the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, whose musical ability he greatly admired. The couple lived in Germany - the land of his birth - but divorced after 6 years.

He was the one of the most talented all-round musicians of the twentieth century; a household name rarely off television sets in the 1970s.

He became well known on British television with a series called Music Night - in which he played and conducted classical pieces and introduced a range of musical guests.

But nothing compared with Morecambe and Wise.

Their Christmas shows were a British institution and regularly watched by more than twenty-five million people.