Hans Florian Zimmer (born September 12, 1957) is an Academy Award, Grammy, and Golden Globe award-winning film score composer and producer from Germany.
Born in Frankfurt am Main, Zimmer began his musical career playing keyboards and synthesizers with, among others, the bands Ultravox and The Buggles ("Video Killed the Radio Star"). He was also a member of the electro-wave band Krisma. In the 1980s, he worked with Stanley Myers, a film composer. His breakthrough came in 1988, with the score for Rain Man, which was nominated for an Academy Award. Since then, Zimmer has composed music for many major blockbusters. In 1995, he received an Academy Award for Best Original Score for the animated movie The Lion King. He composed the theme for the boxing series The Contender and also produced the soundtracks for the 2005 anime series Blood+. Other composers like Steve Jablonsky, James Dooley, Heitor Pereira and Geoff Zanelli work in Zimmer's studio, Remote Control Productions (formerly known as Media Ventures). Accomplished composers including Harry Gregson-Williams, Mark Mancina, John Powell and Klaus Badelt are also all former members of the studio. In 2007, two of Zimmer's scores (both of which also had lyrics) entered the UK Singles Chart as well as the US Billboard Top 100 List when "Spider Pig" from The Simpsons Movie (charted at #24) and "Hoist the Colours" from Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (charted at #43) topped the lists based on download sales. The song ("Spider Pig") reached #3 on the Irish Singles Chart.
Zimmer is married to Suzanne Zimmer and they have three children, Zoe, Brigitte and Jake.
