David Whitaker’s death at the age of 81 saw the Kingston-upon-Thames-born composer, songwriter and arranger hailed as “a genius” in France, where he was regarded as an all-rounder of considerable gifts.
A graduate of the Guildhall School of Music, he began his career as a songwriter in the late 1950s, and started making orchestral arrangements for the BBC soon after. A chance encounter with Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham led to a career-changing invitation to arrange two songs for Marianne Faithfull at not many more hours’ notice.
Whitaker soon became the arranger of choice for successive generations of pop stars. One of his first hits was Comme d’habitude, sung by Claude Francois, which later became Frank Sinatra’s signature song, My Way. Other key collaborators included Serge Gainsbourg, Nico, Lee Hazlewood, Eurythmics, Simply Red, and, more recently, the dreamy, retro-electronica of French duo Air. As recently as October 2011, he had produced arrangements for new albums by Mick Hucknall and Nana Mouskouri.
He composed soundtracks for nearly 30 films, including Scream and Scream Again (1970) and Vampira (1975) for Hammer, the Hollywood western The Desperadoes (1969), and the French drama Harry, He’s Here to Help (2000), for which he received a Cesar Award nomination. On television, he contributed incidental music to more than 230 episodes of Heartbeat (1995-2009), more than 50 episodes of The Royal (2003-11), and two episodes of The Royal Today (2008).
He died on January 11, and is survived by his second wife and two sons.
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