Hamlisch, Marvin

Subterms

    Latest story

    138 Shares28 Views

    Alan Bergman, Half of a Prolific Lyric-Writing Team, Dies at 99

    by

    With his wife, Marilyn, he wrote the words to memorable TV theme songs and the Oscar-winning “The Way We Were” and “The Windmills of Your Mind.”Alan Bergman, who teamed with his wife, Marilyn, to write lyrics for the Academy Award-winning songs “The Way We Were” and “The Windmills of Your Mind” and for some of television’s most memorable theme songs, died on Thursday night at his home in Los Angeles. He was 99.His death was announced by a family spokesman, Ken Sunshine.The Bergmans regularly collaborated with prominent composers like Marvin Hamlisch, with whom they wrote “The Way We Were,” from the 1973 Barbra Streisand-Robert Redford romance of the same name (“Memories/Light the corners of my mind/Misty watercolor memories/Of the way we were”), and Michel Legrand, with whom they wrote “The Windmills of Your Mind,” from the 1968 crime movie “The Thomas Crown Affair,” starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway (“Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel/Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel”).Barbra Streisand and Robert Redford in the 1973 film “The Way We Were.” The Bergmans won an Academy Award for the title song, a collaboration with Marvin Hamlisch.Columbia PicturesThey also wrote the lyrics to Mr. Legrand’s score for Ms. Streisand’s 1983 film “Yentl,” for which they won their third Academy Award.The Bergmans were among the favored lyricists of stars like Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and especially Ms. Streisand, who in 2011 released the album “What Matters Most: Barbra Streisand Sings the Lyrics of Alan and Marilyn Bergman.” The album’s 10 tracks included “The Windmills of Your Mind,” “Nice ’n’ Easy,” “That Face” and the title song, none of which were among the numerous Bergman lyrics Ms. Streisand had recorded before. Promoting the album, she described the Bergmans as having “a remarkable gift for expressing affairs of the heart.”Between 1970 and 1996, the Bergmans received a total of 16 Oscar nominations. One year, 1983, they claimed three of the five best-song nominations, for “It Might Be You” from “Tootsie,” “If We Were in Love” from “Yes, Giorgio” and “How Do You Keep the Music Playing?” from “Best Friends.” (They lost to “Up Where We Belong” from “An Officer and a Gentleman.”)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 113 Shares21 Views

      in Theater

      ‘A Chorus Line’ and ‘Chicago’ at 50: Who Won?

      by

      Just two musicals open on Broadway during the summer of 1975. “Chicago,” in June, is received warily, like a stranger at the door. It’s “a very sleek show,” writes Walter Kerr in The New York Times. “It just seems to be the wrong one.” But “A Chorus Line,” in July, elicits unthrottled raves. “The conservative word” for it, writes Kerr’s colleague Clive Barnes, “might be tremendous, or perhaps terrific.”Yet the musicals have more in common than their initial reception reveals. Both shows are about performers: “Chicago” featuring 1920s vaudevillians with a sideline in murder; “A Chorus Line,” contemporary Broadway dancers. Both are masterminded by director-choreographers of acknowledged (and self-acknowledged) brilliance: “Chicago” by Bob Fosse; “A Chorus Line” by Michael Bennett. Both are seen, regardless of reviews, as exemplars of style-meets-content storytelling in a period of confusing change in musical theater. And both shows remain touchstones today, albeit of very different things.Donna McKechnie (center, in red) and the cast of the original Broadway production of “A Chorus Line.”Indeed, their differences now seem more salient than their similarities, and fate has been funny with their reputations. For 50 years, “A Chorus Line” and “Chicago” have tussled for primacy like Jacob and Esau, at least in the eyes and ears of Broadway fans. Which show is “the wrong one” now?To answer that, you might look uncharitably at their faults. “A Chorus Line” is shaggy and gooped up with psychobabble. “Chicago” is mechanical, a big hammer pounding one nail. But both are so well crafted for performance that those faults fade in any good production. For me, having seen each many times, the highlights are more telling.Jerry Orbach and the cast of the 1977-78 national tour of “Chicago.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More