Four times Oscar-winning composer André Previn dies aged 89

The conductor and composer André Previn has died at the age of 89. The German-born musician was an extraordinary and versatile talent who blurred the boundaries between jazz, pop, film and classical music.

For many Britons, however, he will always be best known as “Andrew Preview” for his appearance on 1971’s Morecambe and Wise Christmas Special, which featured him conducting Eric Morecambe as an inept soloist in Grieg’s Piano Concerto.

He conducted the London Symphony Orchestra and was married five times.

The jazz singer, Betty Bennett, became his first wife; the couple quickly had two daughters and, just as swiftly, split.

A few years later, the lyricist Dory Langdon became his second wife and songwriting partner.

Together they wrote Oscar-nominated numbers for the films Pepe (1960) and Two For the Seesaw (1962).

One of his more famous marriages was to actress and activist Mia Farrow, former wife of Frank Sinatra.

The couple were married from 1970 to 1979 and had three biological children.

Previn later married Heather Mary Hales, and they divorced 17 years later.

His final marriage, in 2002, was to the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, whose musical ability he greatly admired. The couple lived in Germany - the land of his birth - but divorced after 6 years.

He won Oscars for Gigi, Porgy and Bess, Irma La Douce and My Fair Lady.

Previn was born in Berlin in 1929, but his family fled Nazi Germany for the US, and he became an American citizen in 1943. He grew up in Los Angeles and, while still in his teens, started writing film scores and working as a jazz pianist, appearing with Ella Fitzgerald, among others.

During military service in the early 50s, he took conducting lessons with Pierre Monteux, and, at the age of 32, abandoned Hollywood to concentrate on a classical career.

His close relationship with the orchestra continued throughout his life. He was made conductor laureate in 1992 and conductor emeritus in 2016 and last conducted them in London in 2015.

He was one of the most talented all-around musicians of the twentieth century; a household name rarely off television sets in the 1970s.