Alan Bergman, the Oscar-, Grammy- and Emmy-winning songwriter whose lyric-writing partnership with his wife Marilyn lasted more than six decades and produced such hits as "The Windmills of Your Mind," "The Way We Were" and "In the Heat of the Night," died Thursday night at his home in Los Angeles. He was 99. Marilyn Bergman, who died in January 2022, was the first woman president and chairman of the board of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), a leading performing-rights society for music-makers. Alan soldiered on even after her death, continuing to put words to music. More from Variety Jackson Browne, Seth MacFarlane, Patti Austin Among Performers Set for 100th Birthday Tribute to Lyricist Alan Bergman Disney's Reorg Revealed: Dana Walden and Alan Bergman Divide Entertainment Assets, International Chief Rebecca Campbell to Exit Marilyn Bergman's Lyrical Legacy Memorialized in Classic Hollywood Songs The Bergmans, who penned hundreds of songs, mostly for movies and TV, bridged the traditional Great American Songbook era of Rodgers & Hart, Cole Porter and Irving Berlin with the more modern pop sensibility of the '60s, '70s and '80s. Their poetic touch, combined with the melodic gifts of so many of their collaborators, elevated the films on which they worked, and made them first-call songwriters for A-list directors like Sydney Pollack, Norman Jewison and Richard Brooks. "Windmills" is a modern classic ("round, like a circle in spiral, like a wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning on an ever-spinning reel…"), as is "Way We Were" ("memories light the corners of my mind, misty watercolor memories…"), while the soulful words of "Heat of the Night" astonished singer Ray Charles when he learned the married couple who wrote them was white. The Bergmans' catalog, even apart from their many awards, constitutes a large portion of the truly great movie songs of the last half of the 20th century. Collaborating with such top composers as Michel Legrand, Marvin Hamlisch, John Williams, Johnny Mandel, Dave Grusin, Quincy Jones, Henry Mancini, David Shire and James Newton Howard, they built a stellar reputation for clever, insightful wordplay. The Bergmans won three Academy Awards: for "Windmills" in 1968, with French composer Legrand, from "The Thomas Crown Affair"; for the title song of "The Way We Were" in 1973, with Hamlisch; and the song score for Barbra Streisand's "Yentl" in 1983, again with Legrand. They were nominated for 13 more Oscars, five of them with their close friend Legrand (including "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?" from 1969's "The Happy Ending," the title song from 1970's "Pieces of Dreams," "How Do You Keep the Music Playing?" from 1982's "Best Friends," and two songs from "Yentl," "Papa Can You Hear Me?" and "The Way He Makes Me Feel"). Two more were with Hamlisch, for songs in 1978's "Same Time, Next Year" and 1980's "Shirley Valentine"; two with Williams, for songs in 1982's "Yes, Giorgio" and 1995's "Sabrina"; and individual songs with Mancini (for 1971's "Sometimes a Great Notion"), Maurice Jarre (for 1972's "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean"), Shire (1979's "The Promise") and Grusin (1982's "Tootsie"). Four of their 11 Grammy nominations were for Song of the Year, and they won for Streisand's recording of "The Way We Were" (also winning for best soundtrack album). Their other Song of the Year nods were for "Nice 'n' Easy," a hit for Frank Sinatra in 1960; "The Summer Knows," a Streisand song from 1971; and "You Don't Bring Me Flowers," a 1978 duet by Streisand and Neil Diamond. Their TV themes included "Maude" and "Good Times" (written with Grusin), "Alice" (with Shire) and "Brooklyn Bridge" (with Hamlisch). They won Emmys for the score of the 1975 TV musical "Queen of the Stardust Ballroom" (with Billy Goldenberg), a song for "Sybil" (with Leonard Rosenman); "Ordinary Miracles" for Barbra Streisand's 1995 HBO special and "A Ticket to Dream" for the 1998 AFI "100 Years, 100 Movies" special (both with Hamlisch). "Queen of the Stardust Ballroom" was adapted for Broadway in 1978 as "Ballroom," and earned a Tony nomination as Best Musical. They later collaborated with Cy Coleman on the stage musical "Portraits in Jazz: A Gallery of Songs," which led to another show, "Like Jazz," that played L.A.'s Mark Taper Forum in 2003. Alan Bergman was born Sept. 11, 1925; Marilyn Keith was, coincidentally, born three years later in the same Brooklyn hospital, but they didn't meet until the late 1950s in California when both were collaborating with songwriter Lew Spence. Alan had studied at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned a master's in music at UCLA. Not long after, he said in a 2011 interview, he was mentored by the already well-established lyricist Johnny Mercer ("Jeepers Creepers," "Accentuate the Positive"). Marilyn and Alan were married in February 1958 and were professional collaborators their entire careers. Among their early hits were "Nice 'n' Easy," title track for the Sinatra album, written with Spence; and "Yellow Bird," a calypso number for a 1959 Norman Luboff album. "We had a passion, and a joy, for writing," Alan said in that interview for the Film Music Foundation. "We loved to write. We write every day. When you love what you do, and you do it with someone you love, that helps everything." He explained their collaborative process this way: "One is the creator and the other is the editor. And those roles change in seconds. It's like pitching and catching, back and forth. And when we write four bars or eight bars, I sing them, so singing is a part of the process. It's constant, back-and-forth communication." "In the Heat of the Night," sung by Ray Charles, was their big breakthrough film, working with composer Quincy Jones in 1967; they later collaborated with Jones on songs for "John and Mary" and "The Getaway." Their other films included, with Grusin, "And Justice for All" and "For the Boys"; with Williams, "Fitzwilly" and "Pete 'n' Tillie"; with Johnny Mandel, "Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams" and "Harper"; with Mancini, "Gaily, Gaily" and "Back Roads"; with Elmer Bernstein, "From Noon Till Three"; with Jerry Goldsmith, "The Russia House"; with John Barry, "Out of Africa"; and with Howard, "The Prince of Tides." Singers who performed Bergman songs — in addition to Sinatra, Streisand and Charles — included Fred Astaire, Neil Diamond, Tony Bennett, Maureen McGovern, Michael Feinstein, Patti Austin and James Ingram. The Bergmans were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1980 and received its Johnny Mercer Award in 1997. They received a lifetime achievement award from the National Academy of Songwriters in 1995. The National Association of Recording Arts & Sciences (NARAS) gave them a governor's award in 2002, and its trustees' award in 2013. Survivors include a daughter, Julie, and a granddaughter. A previously scheduled 100th-birthday celebration on Sept. 11 at the Broad Stage in Santa Monica, Calif. (with such guests as Seth MacFarlane, Michael Feinstein, Dave Grusin and Jackson Browne) will go on as scheduled, becoming a celebration of the Bergmans' work, a family spokesman said. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week 'Harry Potter' TV Show Cast Guide: Who's Who in Hogwarts? Final Emmy Predictions: Talk Series and Scripted Variety - New Blood Looks to Tackle Late Night Staples Sign up forVariety's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us onFacebook,Twitter, andInstagram.
