RARELY HAS A composer been so associated with the world of film as Michel Legrand. His involvement started in his native France in the late 1950s, when, inspired by the audacity of the French New Wave, he began a frantic work schedule, composing within a year soundtracks for up to a dozen television and feature films.

Come the 1960s, Legrand scored seven Jean-Luc Godard films and 10 feature films for director Jacques Demy (including Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, Les Demoiselles de Rochefort and Peau d’Âne.

It was in the US, though, where Legrand was to find his true niche and major successes. Leaving Europe in 1966 for Los Angeles, Legrand went on to write the soundtrack for Norman Jewison’s The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), scooping an Oscar the following year for Best Film Theme Song for The Windmills of your Mind. This was quickly followed by the music for Joseph Losey’s Cannes Palme d’or winner, The Go-Between (1970), and another Oscar (Best Film Music) for The Summer of ‘42 (1971).

In the 1970s and 1980s, Legrand worked with directors Clint Eastwood (Breezy, 1973), Jean-Paul Rappeneau (Le Sauvage, 1975), Louis Malle (Atlantic City, 1980) and, er, Barbra Streisand (Yentl, 1983, the theme tune to which won him another Oscar).

Also in the 1980s, Legrand joined the select group of composers commissioned to score a James Bond movie (Never Say Never Again, 1983).