Robin Gibb, one of three brothers who made up the disco group the Bee Gees behind “Saturday Night Fever” and other hits from the 1970s, died on Sunday, according to a statement on his website.
He was 62.
Gibb “passed away today following his long battle with cancer and intestinal surgery,” said the statement, which was attributed to his family.
Diagnosed with colon and liver cancer, Gibbs had been in a coma as he battled pneumonia earlier this spring, representative Doug Wright said.
Doctors believe that Gibb had a secondary tumor, Wright said April 14, confirming a news account in the U.K. newspaper The Sun. Gibb had emergency surgery in 2010 for a blocked bowel and then had more surgery for a twisted bowel, Wright confirmed.
The only surviving member of the three Bee Gees is brother Barry, 65.
Robin’s twin brother, Maurice, died in 2003 from a twisted bowel.
And younger brother Andy Gibb died at age 30 from a heart infection.
The Brothers Gibb — calling themselves the Bee Gees — soared to renown after the 1977 film “Saturday Night Fever” starring John Travolta was built around the group’s falsetto voices and disco songs.
In the latter part of the 1970s, the British-born Bee Gees “dominated dance floors and airwaves. With their matching white suits, soaring high harmonies and polished, radio-friendly records, they remain one of the essential touchstones to that ultra-commercial era,” the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame says on its website.
“Saturday Night Fever” and the group’s 1979 album “Spirits Having Flown” yielded six No. 1 hits, “making the Bee Gees the only group in pop history to write, produce and record that many consecutive chart-topping singles,” according to the Hall of Fame.
While often more in the background, Robin Gibb was the lead singer on several of the Bee Gees’ top tunes including “I Started a Joke” and “I’ve Gotta Get a Message to You.” He also recorded several solo albums during his career.
Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997, the Bee Gees sold more than 200 million albums, and their soundtrack album to “Saturday Night Fever” was the top-selling album until Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” claimed that distinction in the 1980s.
