Ken Thorne, best known as the composer of the score of the Beatles film Help!, has died at the age of 90.

Thorne was a musician and composer since his teens and was hired by director Dick Lester to compose the incidental music for that film in 1965.

"My orders were to only use Beatles music and use their themes and snippets of themes, and I did that," he explained to reporters of his work on the project.

The following year he penned the award winning score to the film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

He was awarded the Oscar for Best Music, Scoring of Music, Adaptation or Treatment that year.

In the 1980s, he worked on the scores to Superman II and Superman III.