Who was Will Jennings? Academy Award-winning lyricist of ‘My Heart Will Go On’ passes away at 80

Will Jennings, the lyricist behind My Heart Will Go On, passed away at the age of 80. According to Jennings' caregiver, Martha Sherrod's statement to The Hollywood Reporter, the lyricist passed away on Friday morning, September 6, at his Tyler, Texas residence. The caregiver revealed that Sherrod's health had been in a downward spiral for the previous five or six years.

Beginning in 1976, Will Jennings's Hollywood career spanned decades and amassed a plethora of accomplishments and awards. Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006, Jennings took home two Academy Awards, three Grammys, and two Golden Globes while working with a slew of prominent artists like Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, and Eric Clapton among others.

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Will Jennings won two Academy Awards and three Grammys

Born in Kilgore, Texas, on June 27, 1944, as the youngest of three kids, William Hershel Jennings became a college professor before carving out a career in Hollywood. He was a professor at the Tyler Junior College in Tyler, Texas, and later taught for three years at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.

After setting out for Hollywood in 1976, Will Jennings wrote the hit track Looks Like We Made It, composed by Richard Kerr and performed by the great Barry Manilow. Jennings later reunited with Kerr and Manilow again, this time for the 1978 hit Somewhere in the Night.

In 1981, Will Jennings, alongside Lalo Schifrin, landed an Academy Award nomination with the track People Alone from Joel Oliansky's 1980 Richard Dreyfuss and Amy Irvine starrer The Competition.

Will Jennings's first big Hollywood moment came in 1982 with the release of a Taylor Hackford project starring Richard Gere and Debra Winger, An Officer and a Gentleman. Jennings won the 1983 Academy Award for Best Original Song alongside Jack Nitzsche and Buffy Sainte-Marie for the track Up Where We Belong from the movie.

More success came for Jennings in 1991 in the form of the hit film Rush, starring Jason Patric. The track Tears in Heaven from the film resulted from a collaboration between Jennings and Eric Clapton. The track took home the coveted Song of the Year and Record of the Year awards at the Grammys, along with a Golden Globe award for Best Original Song.

In 1997, James Cameron's Titanic hit theatres and brought the iconic track My Heart Will Go On, performed by Celine Dion, composed by James Horner, and written by Jennings. The track also included in Dion's 1997 album Let's Talk About Love, became one of the highest-selling singles of all time.

For his contributions to the track, Jennings won his second Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 1998 Oscars, alongside a Golden Globe for the same category and yet another Grammy award. Will Jennings, arguably considered one of the greatest songwriters ever, cemented his place in history by being inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006.

Apart from the works mentioned above, Jennings has worked with many other incredibly prominent artists, including Mariah Carey, Jimmy Buffett, Steve Winwood, Dionne Warwick, Tim McGraw, Roy Orbison, B.B. King, and Whitney Houston. He collaborated with Houston for the No. 1 hit classic track Didn’t We Almost Have It All.

Jennings even wrote the popular track Where Are You Christmas? from the Jim Carrey-starred film How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Will Jennings was also a frequent collaborator of English musician Steve Winwood, joining forces with the songwriter for the albums Arc of a Diver, Talking Back to the Night, and Back in the High Life. Will Jennings is survived by his wife, Carole, and his sisters, Joyce and Gloria.