Alan Bergman

All Music Guide:

Alan Bergman teamed with wife Marilyn to forge one of the premier lyric-writing teams in contemporary film music, authoring a series of hit themes for movies including In the Heat of the Night, The Thomas Crown Affair, and The Way We Were. Bergman was born September 11, 1925, in Brooklyn, NY, and began his career during the early '50s as a director of children's television programming.

In 1958, he married Marilyn and three years later the couple earned their first big-screen credit for their work on The Right Approach. 1967's In the Heat of Night was the Bergmans' breakthrough; composed with Quincy Jones, the picture's familiar title theme was sung by the inimitable Ray Charles. The following year, the couple teamed with composer Michel Legrand for The Thomas Crown Affair, notching an international smash with Noel Harrison's rendition of the film's "The Windmills of Your Mind," and the Bergmans subsequently enjoyed a lengthy collaboration with Legrand that yielded such familiar favorites as "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?" and "How Do You Keep the Music Playing." Arguably their best-known effort was the title theme to the 1973 melodrama The Way We Were, written with Marvin Hamlisch. The song, a number one pop hit for the movie's star, Barbra Streisand, also earned an Academy Award. After notching Emmys for their work on the television projects Queen of the Stardust Ballroom and Sybil, the Bergmans reunited with Hamlisch for 1978's Oscar-nominated "The Last Time I Felt Like This," from Same Time, Next Year. With Dave Grusin, the couple also penned the Tootsie theme "It Might Be You," a Top Ten hit for Stephen Bishop in 1982. A year later they earned an Oscar for Best Original Score for their work on Streisand's Yentl, and the Bergmans also earned two Academy Award nominations, for their contributions to 1989's Shirley Valentine and 1995's Sabrina. Bergman took a tentative vocal on his own "It Might Be You" for Diane Schuur's 2000 album Friends for Schuur, and released his own vocal full-length, Lyrically, Alan Bergman, in 2007.

Wikipedia:

Alan Bergman (born September 11, 1925) is an American lyricist and songwriter.

Life & career

Born in Brooklyn, New York, he studied at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UCLA. His involvement in the entertainment industry began in the early 1950s as a director of children's television shows. He and his wife Marilyn Bergman, whom he married in 1958, were born in the same hospital and raised in the same Brooklyn neighborhood, but did not meet until each had relocated to Los Angeles. Together they have written the music and lyrics for numerous television shows, films, and stage musicals.

In 1983, the couple became the first songwriters ever to have written three of the five tunes nominated for an Academy Award for Best Song - "How Do You Keep the Music Playing?" from Best Friends, "It Might Be You" from Tootsie (with Dave Grusin), and "If We Were in Love" from Yes, Giorgio (with John Williams); "Up Where We Belong" from "An Officer and a Gentleman" won that year.They also wrote the popular theme song And Then There's Maude for the hit Norman Lear television series Maude .

Bergman was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1980 and in 1995 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Berklee College of Music. He is a member of the board of Barbra Streisand's charitable foundation. In 2011, he was presented with a Distinguished Alumnus award from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Works

Bergman's and his wife's credits include:

In 2007, Bergman released his first album as a vocalist, Lyrically, Alan Bergman, featuring some of the Bergmans' best known lyrics. Barbra Streisand's 2011 album What Matters Most was recorded in tribute to the Bergmans.