Ennio Morricone Wins Oscar 2016 After Winning Academy Honorary Award in 2007

Last night’s Oscar followed an Academy Award for “magnificent and multifaceted contributions to the art of film music” in 2007.

Morricone has worked with such directors as Sergio Leone, Bernardo Bertolucci, Lina Wertmuller, Brian De Palma, Roman Polanski and Oliver Stone.

The 87-year-old won the Oscar for Best Original Score nine years after he received an honorary Oscar. The oldest acting victor is Christopher Plummer, who was 82 when he won for Beginners.

As The Hollywood Reporter pointed out, Morricone is likely the oldest victor of a competitive Oscar. Charlie Chaplin was 83 when he won an Oscar in 1973 for co-writing the score to Limelight.

Other nominated composers on Sunday included Thomas Newman, who scored Steven Spielberg’s thriller “Bridge of Spies“, and John Williams, who composed the music for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens”.

Morricone then continued paying homage to his director. Ennio Morricone, a native Italian speaker, spoke to the crowd through an English translator at the ceremony honoring him with his Hollywood Walk of Fame star, and he praised Tarantino’s work while discussing the challenges of working with a brand new colleague.

Morricone, 87, has composed the scores for more than 450 films, from 1960s Spaghetti Westerns including “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” to Quentin Tarantino’s frontier drama “The Hateful Eight”. I dedicate this award to my wife Maria, who is there watching me.

“Superb Maestro, finally!” tweeted Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi at dawn, Italian time. And designers Dolce & Gabbana issued their congratulations to the composer, eager to point out that he was wearing one of their tuxedos. He flew to Rome to convince Morricone to do the score for Hateful Eight.