Mandel worked with a who's who in music - Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Count Basie, Barbra Streisand, Peggy Lee and Diane Schuur.
He would earn an Oscar as well as a Grammy for composing the music for "The Shadow of Your Smile" which appeared in the movie The Sandpiper starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. Mandel was also responsible for the innovative arrangements on the Natalie Cole album Unforgettable...with Love which included the voice of her father Nat King Cole.
But perhaps Mandel's greatest musical legacy is composing the music for the song "Suicide is Painless" (the lyrics were written by Robert Altman's then 14-year old son Mike), the theme to the 1970 movie M*A*S*H which was adapted for the TV series. Somewhere in the world that theme is being played as it has been for the past half century and will continue to be played for at least another half century. R.I.P.
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