Marvin Hamlisch, who composed the scores for dozens of movies including The Sting and won a Tony award for A Chorus Line, has died in Los Angeles at 68.

Hamlisch collapsed and died on Monday after a brief illness, his publicist Ken Sunshine said on behalf of the family. Other details were not immediately released.

Hamlisch's scores helped define some of Hollywood's most iconic works. The composer won every major award in his career, including three Academy Awards, four Emmys, a Tony and three Golden Globes.

Hamlisch composed more than 40 film scores, including Sophie's Choice, Ordinary People and Take the Money and Run. He won his third Oscar for his adaptation of Scott Joplin's music for The Sting.

On Broadway, Hamlisch received both a Tony and the Pulitzer Prize for long-running favourite The Chorus Line and wrote The Goodbye Girl and Sweet Smell of Success. His latest work came for Steven Soderbergh's The Informant!

Although he was one of the youngest students ever at the Juilliard School of Music, he never studied conducting. "I remember somebody told me, 'Earn while you learn'," he told The Associated Press in 1996.

He even reached into the pop world, writing the No.1 R&B hit Break It to Me Gently with Carole Bayer Sager for Aretha Franklin.

He won the 1974 Grammys for best new artist and song of the year, The Way We Were, performed by Barbra Streisand.

That ballad exemplified Hamlisch's old-fashioned appeal - big and sentimental, bringing huge success in the rock era.

He was extremely versatile, able to write for stage and screen, for soundtracks ranging from Woody Allen comedies to a sombre drama like Ordinary People.

Hamlisch also had a place in popular culture. Known for his nerdy look, complete with thick eyeglasses, that image was sealed on US TV's Saturday Night Live during Gilda Radner's Nerd sketches. Radner, playing Lisa Loopner, would swoon over Hamlisch.

Hamlisch was principal pops conductor for symphony orchestras in Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Dallas, Pasadena, Seattle and San Diego.

He was due to lead the New York Philharmonic during its upcoming New Year's Eve concert.

He was working on a new musical, Gotta Dance, at the time of his death and was scheduled to write the score for a new film on Liberace, Behind the Candelabra.

He is survived by his wife of 25 years, Terre.

Cheers,
Keith