Thousand Oaks, Calif. ? Artie Shaw, the clarinetist and bandleader whose recording of “Begin the Beguine” epitomized the Big Band era, died Thursday at his home. He was 94.

Shaw had been in declining health for some time and apparently died of natural causes, his attorney and longtime friend Eddie Ezor said. Shaw’s caregiver was with him when he died, Ezor said.

At his peak in the 1930s and ’40s, Shaw pulled in a five-figure salary per week and ranked with Benny Goodman, Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller as the bandleaders who made music swing. But he left the music world largely behind in the mid-1950s and spent much of the second half of his life devoted to writing and other pursuits.

His band’s recording of Cole Porter’s “Begin the Beguine” was intended to be the “B” side of the record. Instead, it became a huge hit, topping the charts for six weeks in 1938 and making Shaw famous at age 28.

Among his other hits, some with his big band and some with his quartet, the Gramercy Five: “Frenesi,” “Dancing in the Dark,” “Nightmare,” “Back Bay Shuffle,” “Accent-tchu-ate the Positive,” “Traffic Jam,” “They Say,” “Moonglow,” “Stardust,” “Thanks for Ev’rything,” “Summit Ridge Drive” and “My Little Nest of Heavenly Blue.”

He composed some of his songs, such as “Interlude in B Flat,” a 1935 work that featured an unusual combination of clarinet and strings.

He worked with such jazz legends as Buddy Rich, Mel Torme, Gordon Jenkins and, at a time when most white bandleaders refused to hire blacks, Billie Holiday.

Another famous roster: his wives. They included actresses Lana Turner (wife No. 3, 1940), Ava Gardner (No. 5, 1945) and Evelyn Keyes (No. 8, 1957), plus novelist Kathleen Winsor, author of the 1944 best-seller “Forever Amber” (No. 6, 1946).

The marriage to Keyes, best known for playing the middle of the three O’Hara sisters in “Gone With the Wind,” lasted the longest, until 1985, but they led separate lives for much of that time.

Bandleader Artie Shaw takes his bride, actress Ava Gardner, into his arms after their Oct. 17, 1945, wedding. Shaw, who married eight times, died Thursday at the age of 94.

“I like her very much and she likes me, but we’ve found it about impossible to live together,” he said in a 1973 interview.

After his first burst of stardom, his good looks made Hollywood come calling. It was while filming “Dancing Coed,” 1939, that he met Turner. In 1940, he appeared in another musical, “Second Chorus,” and received two Academy Award nominations for his musical contributions — for best score and best song (“Love of My Life”).

A volatile and superbly intelligent man, Shaw hated the loss of privacy that stardom brought, had little use for signing autographs and once caused an uproar by calling jitterbugging fans “morons.” He later said he was just referring to the rowdy ones.

“I could never understand why people wanted to dance to my music,” he once said. “I made it good enough to listen to.”

He chafed at having to play “Begin the Beguine” ad nauseam, wishing audiences would be more willing to accept new material. (“I mean, it’s a good tune if you are going to be associated with one tune, but I didn’t want that.”)