James Horner: Ron Howard, James Cameron pay tribute to late Oscar-winning composer

While James Horner worked with countless directors on over 150 films, his work was most closely associated with directors Ron Howard and James Cameron. The two Oscar winners paid tribute to their collaborator on Tuesday after it was confirmed that Horner died Monday in a plane crash.

Howard and Horner worked together on seven films, starting with Cocoon. Horner earned Oscar nominations for Howard’s Apollo 13 and A Beautiful Mind. In a tweet, Howard wrote, “My heart aches for his loved ones.”

As for Cameron, he contributed a lengthy piece to the Hollywood Reporter. Although Horner and Cameron only worked together for three films - Aliens, Titanic and Avatar - they remain some of the best-known modern Hollywood scores. All three earned Horner Oscar nominations and he won for his work on Titanic. Horner won a second for Titanic, for co-writing “My Heart Will Go On.”

Cameron and Horner almost only worked together once. Horner wrote the Aliens score quickly and he never met Cameron while working on that. But after Cameron heard the Braveheart and Apollo 13 scores, he wanted to work with Horner for Titanic.

“A couple of months ago, in April, they did a night at the Royal Albert Hall where the orchestra did the entire Titanic score live to the movie. James was there to take his bows. [Producer] Jon Landau and I went to London just for the concert, and we had a kind of reunion. It was emotional and I'm glad that was my last personal memory of James,” Cameron told THR. “They had to subtitle the film because when the orchestra was playing, you couldn’t hear the words. I thought, ‘This is how James would have imagined it.’”

Cameron said that Horner was about to start work on the score for the Avatar sequels later this year.

Horner died on Monday doing what he loved - flying. He was 61. You can check out our favorite scores here and how the rest of Hollywood remembered him here.