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 Van Halen's death was announced
by his 29-year-old son, Wolfgang, a bass player
who joined the band, best known for songs like
"Jump" and "Ain't Talkin 'Bout Love," in later
years.
"I can't believe I'm having to write this but my
father, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, has lost his
long and arduous battle with cancer this
morning," Wolfgang Van Halen said on Twitter.
Representatives for Eddie Van Halen did not
disclose details of his death. People magazine
reported the rocker died at a Los Angeles-area
hospital with his wife, Janie, son and other
family members at his side.
"Through all your challenging treatments for
lung cancer you kept your gorgeous spirit and
that impish grin," his former wife of 26 years,
actress Valerie Bertinelli, said on Twitter.
Fans placed flowers and guitar picks on Van
Halen's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
"What a long, great trip its been," the band's
flamboyant frontman during its glory years,
David Lee Roth, said in a message on Twitter
above a black-and-white photo of the two men
clenching hands backstage at a concert.
Eddie Van Halen was born in Amsterdam on Jan.
26, 1955, and studied classical piano after
moving to the Los Angeles suburb of Pasadena
with his family in the 1960s.
After switching to guitar, he and his older
brother, Alex, who took up the drums, formed
bands that would eventually become Van Halen in
the mid-1970s, with lead singer Roth and bassist
Michael Anthony.
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The hard-rock band, featuring
Eddie Van Halen's explosive riffs and solos,
quickly became a staple of Sunset Strip clubs
such as Gazzari's and the Whisky a Go Go before
releasing their eponymous debut album in 1978.
That album shot to No. 19 on the Billboard
charts, becoming one of the most successful
debuts of the decade and the first in a string
of top-selling albums that would make Van Halen
one of the biggest rock acts of the late 1970s
and early 1980s. Eddie Van Halen,
known for his two-handed tapping technique on
the strings, earned a place along Jimi Hendrix,
Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page as one of rock's
most celebrated guitarists. In 2012, readers of
Guitar World magazine voted him the greatest of
all time.
Roth, who often clashed with the Van Halen
brothers, split from the band in the mid-1980s
and was replaced for a decade by Sammy Hagar.
The original lineup reunited in 2007 for a tour
and, four years later, an album.
"My heart is broken. Eddie was not only a Guitar
God, but a genuinely beautiful soul," Gene
Simmons, lead singer of Kiss and an early
champion of Van Halen with record companies,
said on Twitter.
(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles;
Additional reporting by Mimi Dwyer, Lisa
Richwine, Steve Gorman and Jill Serjeant;
Editing by Lisa Shumaker, Gerry Doyle and Peter
Cooney)
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