Will Jennings, co-author of smash hits like Steve Winwood's "Higher Love" and Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On", has passed away at the age of 80, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Jennings' career, which spanned over five decades, took off in the mid-1970s when he teamed up with composer Richard Kerr and wrote Barry Manilow's hit "Looks Like We Made It".
Jennings went on to write for a number of major artists such as BB King, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Jimmy Buffett, and Roy Orbison.
In 1983, Jennings won his first Oscar for the song "Up Where We Belong", written for Taylor Hackford's film "An Officer and a Gentleman".
Eight years later, he won a Grammy and received a Golden Globe nomination for the lyrics to Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven", which dealt with Clapton's four-year-old son's death and was used as the theme song for the film "Rush".
His greatest success was "My Heart Will Go On", the theme song for "Titanic", which swept up an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy Award in 1998.
In 2006, Will Jennings was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
