Happy Birthday to double EGOT writer Robert Lopez, born Feb. 23, 1975, in Manhattan. At age 6, he started piano lessons at Greenwich House Music School, before attending Hunter College H.S. He studied English at Yale University, where he wrote two musicals himself. After graduating in 1997, Lopez lived with his parents in Greenwich Village for four years and temped, until he began earning enough money to rent an apartment of his own.
In 1998, while attending the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop, he met Kristen Anderson, whom he married in 2003, and Jeff Marx, with whom he wrote Kermit, Prince of Denmark, which won a Kleban Award. In 1999, Lopez and Marx began work on Avenue Q, which premiered Off-Broadway in 2003 and quickly transferred to Broadway. The production earned six Tony nominations (winning best musical, book, and score), and the original cast album earned a Grammy nomination. Below is the original Avenue Q cast performing “It Sucks to Be Me” at the 2004 Tonys.
Meanwhile, Lopez collaborated with his brother, Billy, on songs for the Nickelodeon series Wonder Pets, for which they won a Daytime Emmy. The following year, Lopez and his wife wrote a musical adaptation of Finding Nemo for Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park, and Lopez and Marx collaborated on the Scrubs episode “My Musical,” earning an Emmy nomination for the song “Everything Comes Down to Poo,” which you can watch below, featuring Avenue Q star Stephanie D’Abruzzo.
In 2010, Lopez won his second Daytime Emmy for The Wonder Pets. A year later, The Book of Mormon premiered on Broadway, after seven years of development, earning 13 Tony nominations and winning nine, including best musical, book, and score. In 2012, the original cast album won a Grammy, and in 2014, the London premiere won the Olivier Award for best new musical. Below is Tony nominee Andrew Rannells singing “I Believe” at the 2012 Tonys.
Lopez and his wife collaborated on songs for Disney’s Winnie the Pooh (2011), then on the score to the studio’s Frozen (2013), which earned the couple an Oscar and a Grammy for the song “Let It Go,” making Lopez the 12th person to achieve the EGOT. Below is the scene from the movie, sung by Idina Menzel as Elsa.
In 2015, the couple’s stage musical Up Here debuted 2015 at La Jolla Playhouse, and they received two Emmy nominations for the songs “Kiss an Old Man” (from the mockumentary TV series The Comedians, starring Frozen alum Josh Gad) and “Moving Pictures” (from the 87th annual Oscar ceremony), which you can watch below, featuring Neil Patrick Harris, Anna Kendrick, and Jack Black.
Bobby and Kristen won another Oscar for their song “Remember Me” from the Disney/Pixar film Coco (2017), making Lopez the first double EGOT winner. A year later, the couple earned a Tony nomination for the score to the stage adaptation of Frozen and an Oscar nomination for “Into the Unknown” from Frozen II (2018). Most recently, they composed the theme music for the 2021 Disney series WandaVision. Below is “Remember Me” from Coco, featuring Anthony Gonzalez and Ana Ofelia Murguía.