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Lennie Niehaus, longtime Clint Eastwood composer, dies aged 90

<span>Photograph: David Redfern/Redferns</span>
Photograph: David Redfern/Redferns

Lennie Niehaus, who as Clint Eastwood’s favoured composer created the scores to Unforgiven and 12 more of his films, has died aged 90.

He died at his daughter’s California home under hospice care, the family announced.

Niehaus was born in St Louis, Missouri, in 1929, the son of a violinist and the brother of a concert pianist. He studied music at university in Los Angeles and, interrupted by two years’ service in the US army, made his name in the jazz orchestra of famed bandleader Stan Kenton. As well as playing alto saxophone, Niehaus wrote and arranged for the group.

He left in 1959 and began composing and arranging for movie studios. Early in his career he orchestrated for composer Jerry Fielding, working on films including Sam Peckinpah’s Straw Dogs, Karel Reisz’s The Gambler, and the Julie Christie horror movie Demon Seed.

Other films Niehaus worked on in this period included Clint Eastwood movies such as The Outlaw Josey Wales. He and Eastwood had become friends at Fort Ord army base in California, where Eastwood had been his swimming instructor.

Niehaus eventually graduated to scoring the films Eastwood directed. Beginning with 1985’s Pale Rider, he scored 13 Eastwood films, including Unforgiven, The Bridges of Madison County, Space Cowboys and Bird, the Charlie Parker biopic for which he isolated Parker’s saxophone solos and set them to new backings. Niehaus also taught Forest Whitaker, who played Parker, the rudiments of saxophone playing.

Niehaus orchestrated six Eastwood films after the director started writing scores himself, including Million Dollar Baby, Mystic River and Gran Torino.

He is survived by wife Patricia and daughter Susan.