Eric Serra is an award-winning French film music composer best known for his work with director Luc Besson on international blockbusters such as #The Fifth Element (1997). Born on September 9, 1959, in Saint-Mandé, Île-de-France, he began his musical career during the mid- to late '70s as a guitarist and bassist in collaboration with a range of French pop/rock acts. During the early '80s he was the bassist of French singer/songwriter Jacques Higelin, one of the country's biggest pop/rock stars of the era. Around this same time, he began collaborating with film director Luc Besson, starting with the score of the short film #L'Avant Dernier (1981). Serra subsequently composed the music for Besson's first feature-length effort, #Le Dernier Combat (1983), as well as successive films either directed or written by the filmmaker: #Subway (1985), #Kamikaze (1986), #Le Grand Bleu (1988), #Nikita (1990), #Atlantis (1991), #Léon (1994), #The Fifth Element (1997), #The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999), #Wasabi (2001), and #Arthur et les Minimoys (2006). In addition to his work with Besson, Serra composed music for other films, most notably #GoldenEye (1995), which features one of the more inventive scores in the James Bond series. The recipient of numerous accolades, Serra won the most prestigious of French film awards, a César, in 1989 for his work on #Le Grand Bleu. He was nominated for several other César awards over the years, including nominations for his scores for the Besson films #Subway, #Nikita, #Léon, #The Fifth Element, and #The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc. Highlights of his film scores were compiled for release on the best-of collection La Musique des Films (1996). As a solo recording artist, Serra made his full-length album debut in 1998 with the pop/rock effort R.X.R.A. ~ Jason Birchmeier, Rovi