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Artist News Obituaries
Noel Harrison 1934-2013
By Aly Barchi | Published on Wednesday 23 October 2013
Oscar-winning singer Noel Harrison, the voice of ‘Windmills Of Your Mind’, died of a heart attack at his home in Devon last week. He was 79.
The son of actor Rex Harrison and the first of his six wives Collette Thomas, Harrison Jr recorded ‘Windmills’ in 1968 for the score to the movie ‘The Thomas Crown Affair’. The song won him, its composer Michel Legrand, and lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman, an Academy Award for Best Original Song that same year.
A former British Olympic champion in giant slalom ski-racing, this in 1953, his career post-‘Windmills’ saw him star in American TV series ‘The Girl From UNCLE’, and release notable hit singles like ‘A Young Girl’, and a cover of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Suzanne’. He also wrote ‘Adieu, Jacques’, a one-man musical in homage to French singer Jacques Brel, in the 1980s.
Harrison passed away in the night on Saturday, having played his last live set at a local village hall hours earlier. His wife, Lori Chapman, tells The Telegraph the show was “extremely successful”, adding: “Noel will be loved and missed by more people than I ever knew”. Harrison leaves behind five children and four grandchildren.
