Noel Harrison: Windmills Of Your Mind Singer Dies at 79

Singer Noel Harrison has died at his home in Devon, aged 79. The son of the actor Rex Harrison, he was best known for recording the hit song The Windmills Of Your Mind on The Thomas Crown Affair soundtrack.

It won best song at the 1968 Oscars and was later covered by artists including Dusty Springfield.

Harrison spent much of his life in America, as an actor and performer, but moved back to the UK in the last decade or so to live in South Devon.

He once said, of recording The Windmills Of Your Mind: “It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time. I went to the studio one afternoon and sang it and pretty much forgot about it.”

Harrison continued: “I didn’t realise until later what a timeless, beautiful piece Michel LeGrand and the Bergmans had written. It turned out to be my most notable piece of work.”

After moving to the US, he starred in the TV series The Girl from UNCLE and had chart hits with A Young Girl and Suzanne, by Leonard Cohen.

On his website he wrote: “I was part of the ‘British Invasion’ spearheaded by The Beatles. I bought a nice house in Los Angeles.

“There was another US charts record and four years of endless TV appearances, theatre tours and star-studded social occasions.”

However he revealed he “didn’t like being a celebrity” and spent his sixties mixing performing with construction work before moving back to the UK, adding, “I was well out of the goldfish bowl and I liked it.”