Arthur Ferrante, who teamed with Lou Teicher (sitting) to form the popular piano duo Ferrante and Teicher, has died at age 88, the L.A. Times reports. The pair met at Juilliard in New York City and toured together throughout the 1950s, popularizing a dueling piano act decades before Elton John and Billy Joel brought the same theme to rock arenas.

But Ferrante and Teicher would find their greatest success on the silver screen, or rather, behind the screen. They scored a Top 10 hit in 1960 with their arrangement for Billy Wilder's classic 1960 film 'The Apartment.' That paved the way for the classically-trained pair to become part of the soundtrack to the '60s, as they went onto provide arrangements for such films as 'West Side Story,' 'Lawrence of Arabia,' 'Cleopatra' and 'One-Eyed Jacks.' Appropriately, they finished the decade with another movie hit, returning to the Top 10 with the theme song from the Oscar-winning 'Midnight Cowboy.'

Known as 'The Grand Twins of the Twin Grands' the duo took their classical training and pop sensibilities, exhibited live where they would follow the classic concerts with pop encores, to guest appearances on TV standards like 'The Ed Sullivan Show' and 'The Tonight Show,' as well as White House invitations from presidents Kennedy, Nixon and Reagan. Throughout their decades-long career, which ended when they retired in 1989, the duo recorded 150 albums and played 5,200 concerts, but they will best be remembered for creating the music to a golden era of film.

Ferrante is survived by his wife, Jena, a daughter and two granddaughters.