Joel Sill dead: Forrest Gump and Castaway legend dies after long illness
The Hollywood star also worked on other hit blockbuster movies, such as Terminator 3 and Blade Runner
Life is a Box of Chocolates - Forrest Gump (7-9) Movie CLIP (1994) HD 1769448829L85RYBnh
Hollywood legend Joel Sill, a music supervisor for more than 150 movies, including such classics as Easy Rider, Flashdance, Forrest Gump, Castaway and An Officer and a Gentleman, has died at the age of 78. It was confirmed he passed away on Saturday, August 23 at his home in Thousand Oaks after a long battle with pulmonary fibrosis.
In his first big break at just 24-years-old, the musician was tasked with selecting the music for Dennis Hopper’s Easy Rider, which starred Peter Fonda. The music supervisor was not well established at this time, but he packed the film with songs such as Born to Be Wild by Steppenwolf, The Weight by The Band, and Wasn’t Born To Follow by The Byrds. The soundtrack became a key part of the movie’s cultural identity and set the standard for the movies that followed it.
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One of his most enduring jobs was Flashdance in 1983. The film, which features a female welder who dreams of being a dancer, was a huge success, and his track choices perfectly complemented the narrative.
The soundtrack was a massive success, and the title song from the movie Flashdance… What a Feeling, sung by Irene Cara, went on to win the 1984 Oscar for Best Original Song. He also helped pioneer the use of a hit single to launch a film, which became an integral marketing tool in the 80s and 90s.
One of his most loved projects is Robert Zemeckis’ 1994 film Forrest Gump, in which he used music to punctuate the different time periods featured in the story. The soundtrack sold over 12 million copies.
He reunited with Zemeckis to help develop a film and music sequence to create a reverse time stamp in the opening of his Jodie Foster-starring movie Contact, in which time goes backwards over the first three minutes.
Another award-winning soundtrack came in the form of An Officer and a Gentleman, which, in 1982, won a Best Original Song Oscar for Up Where We Belong by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes.
Further notable movies included La Bamba, Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, The Killing Fields, Blade Runner, Purple Rain and The Color Purple.
A keen surfer, he was married to his wife Kimberly for 24 years, and the pair shared a commitment to animal rights and animal activism.
Between them, they found homes for thousands of lost animals through Kimberly’s venture Shelter Hope - a non-profit volunteer-based pet shop that showcases shelter animals available for in-store adoption.
