Will Jennings, Oscar Winner for “My Heart Will Go On” and “Up Where We Belong,” Dies at 80

Will Jennings, the Oscar-winning co-writer behind hits like “My Heart Will Go On” and “Tears in Heaven,” has died. He was 80.

Jennings died Friday morning at his home in Tyler, Texas, his caregiver, Martha Sherrod, told The Hollywood Reporter. He had been in declining health for the past five or six years, she said.

The lyricist was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006, nearly 10 years after winning his second Oscar for Celine Dion’s Titanic song “My Heart Will Go On”; he shared the credit with frequent collaborator James Horner.

Prior to that, he won his first Academy Award, alongside Jack Nitzsche and Buffy Sainte-Marie, for An Officer and a Gentleman‘s “Up Where We Belong” in 1983. He was first nominated with Lalo Schifrin in 1981 “People Alone” from The Competition. In addition to his two Oscars, he also won three Grammys and two Golden Globes, as well as a slew of others.

He began his Hollywood career in 1976, and by 1977 had teamed up with composer Richard Kerr to write Barry Manilow’s hit, “Looks Like We Made It.” The duo reunited for the artist’s top 10 hit, “Somewhere in the Night,” two years later.

In the early 1990s, Jennings also collaborated with Eric Clapton to write “Tears in Heaven,” from the 1991 film, Rush. The song was nominated for a Golden Globe and won song of the year at the Grammys.

Wilbur H. Jennings was born in Kilgore, Texas, on June 27, 1944. Prior to pursuing a career in Hollywood, he was a professor at Tyler Junior College in Tyler, Texas, and then at Austin State University, before teaching at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire for three years.

Over the course of his lyricist career, he wrote for several artists, including Whitney Houston, B.B. King, Mariah Carey, Jimmy Buffett, Joe Sample, Rodney Crowell, Roy Orbison and more. He collaborated with Steve Winwood on multiple albums, like Arc of a Diver, Talking Back to the Night and Back in the High Life.

He teamed up with Carey and Horner to write the central song in How the Grinch Stole Christmas, “Where Are You Christmas?” which was sung by a character in the film and by Faith Hill at the end of it. Jennings and Horner also wrote a song for A Beautiful Mind.

Jennings’ friend, musician Peter Wolf, paid tribute to the composer in a social media post, writing, “‘A Lot of Good Ones Gone’…A sad time, the passing of Will Jennings, a maestro, brilliant mind and a gentle spirit. Will shared his talents with me, ever patient and generous, he was a treasured friend and teacher, enriching my life in so many ways. It was an enormous honor to have worked with such a musical genius for so many years…To quote one of his favorite poets, W.B Yeats,’Think where man’s glory most begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.’”

Survivors include his wife, Carole, and his sisters, Joyce and Gloria.

Mike Barnes contributed to this report.