Status: 07/12/2022 10:57 a.m
The creator of the James Bond motif, Monty Norman, is dead. The musician died after a short illness at the age of 94. The authorship of the famous title music was in question for a long time.
British singer and composer Monty Norman, who invented the famous motif for the James Bond film score, died on Monday at the age of 94. Norman died after a short illness, according to the musician’s website.
Norman was born on April 4, 1928 in London, he got his first guitar at the age of 16. He began a career as a singer; in the 1950s and early 1960s he appeared with jazz bands and in variety shows, including in a duo with cabaret artist Benny Hill. Eventually he devoted himself to composing songs for, among others, Cliff Richards and Tommy Steele.
In 1962 film producer Albert Broccoli engaged him for the title music of the first James Bond film “007 chases Dr. No”. Norman took a motif he had written for a musical version of the novel ‘A House for Mr Biswas’ by future Nobel Prize winner VS Naipaul, substituting an electric guitar for the sitar intended for the musical.
Litigation about authorship
However, the producers were not happy with the result and commissioned the film’s composer, John Barry, to rearrange the title track. The musical motif became one of the most famous trademarks of the globally successful Bond films.
Barry later claimed authorship for himself – in 2001, however, Norman won a lawsuit against the “Sunday Times”, which in turn had awarded the song to Barry in 1997. The newspaper had to pay the equivalent of almost 50,000 euros in damages.