Lyricist Will Jennings, 80, died on Sept. 6. Jennings penned “My Heart Will Go On” (Titanic) and “Up Where We Belong” (An Officer and a Gentleman). Jennings’ songs became hits for Barry Manilow (“Looks Like We Made It”), Joe Cocker (“I’m So Glad I’m Standing Here Today”), Tim McGraw (“Please Remember Me”), and Dionne Warwick (“I’ll Never Love This Way Again”). Over his career, he won three Grammys, two Golden Globes, and two Oscars; he was also inducted into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame. Of writing songs for films, Jennings explained that “I might look at a script, I might look at the rough cut of a film, I might not even see anything. In the case of Titanic, [composer] James Horner, I went over to his house and he told me the story of the script. And then he played me the theme that he had, and I just took it from there. I didn’t see any footage or read any of the script, but he told me the story, and then I had an inspiration and wrote the song.”
