Composer Shirley Walker, noted for scoring music for many scifi and fantasy films, has died following complications from a stroke. She was only 61 years of age.

Walker wrote the musical score for all three of the Final Destination movies and had only recently finished work on the horror feature “Black Christmas.”

In 1992 Walker became the first woman to receive sole composing credit on a Hollywood studio picture, for “Memoirs of an Invisible Woman” and she garnered a Daytime Emmy for her music for the animated Batman series.

Early in her career she was a piano soloist with the San Francisco Symphony. Her first major film gig was a biggie, playing the eerie synthesizer music in Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now.”

From that experience Walker went on to work as the conductor and orchestrator for Danny Elfman and Hans Zimmer, working on such features as “Scrooged,” “Batman,” “Dick Tracy” and “Edward Scissorhands.”

Her rousing musical themes gave the strong emotional element for other motion pictures and television programs like “Batman Beyond,” “The New Batman Adventures,” “Spawn” and “Superman.” In 1996, she provided the powerfully driven score for John Carpenter’s futuristic action film “Escape From L.A.”

The entertainment industry has lost a very creative and powerful talent in Shirley Walker and she will be sorely missed by fans of science fiction, fantasy and horror films.