MIAMI, July 30 (UPI) -- Tony Award-winning stage and film composer and lyricist Robert Wright has died in Miami at age 90.
The three-time Oscar nominee died of natural causes Wednesday at his Miami home, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.
Wright and his collaborator of more than 70 years, the late George "Chet" Forrest, created Broadway's "Kismet," "Grand Hotel" and "Song of Norway."
The duo became friends in high school and composed their first song "Hail to Miami High," the Times said. They went on to write lyrics and music for more than 2,000 compositions for 16 produced stage musicals, 18 stage reviews, 58 films and numerous cabaret acts.
"Kismet," their hit 1953 Broadway musical, included the hit "Stranger in Paradise" and earned them a Tony for the score.
While under contract to MGM in the late 1930s and early 1940s, they got three Oscar nominations for best song -- "Always and Always" from "Mannequin" (1938), "It's a Blue World" from "Music in My Heart" (1940) and "Pennies for Peppino" from "Flying with Music" (1942).
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers honored the duo in 1995 with its Richard Rodgers/ASCAP Award for Outstanding Lifetime Contributions to the American Musical Theater.
Forrest died in 199 at 84.
Wright is survived by his brother, Jack, of Gloversville, N.Y.
