Emmy-, Grammy-, and Oscar-winning lyricist Marilyn Bergman died January 8 in Los Angeles. Born Marilyn Keith on November 10, 1928, in Brooklyn, she majored in music at New York’s High School of Music & Art. While a student, she would play piano for country songwriter Bob Russell, who encouraged her to consider songwriting herself. After graduating from NYU, she did — moving to Los Angeles and working with composer Lew Spence. In 1956, she began cowriting with Alan Bergman, another Spence collaborator. They married two years later.
The Bergmans had their first Top 40 hit on the U.K. charts in 1957 with Dean Martin’s “The Man Who Plays the Mandolino” (music by Giuseppe Fanciulli). In 1958, they worked with Spence on the Bing Crosby album Never Be Afraid, a musical adaptation of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Below is Crosby singing the title song. They first charted on the U.S. Hot 100 with the Mills Brothers 1959 version of “Yellow Bird” (Norman Luboff).
They began the 1960s with Frank Sinatra’s recording of “Nice ’n’ Easy” (Spence), which earned them a 1961 Grammy nomination for Song of the Year, then landed in Billboard’s Top Five with Arthur Lyman’s 1961 version of “Yellow Bird.” They made their Broadway debut in 1964 with the short-lived musical Something More! (Sammy Fain). Below is a live recording of Barbara Cook singing “No Questions Asked.”
They made their film debut with the title song of the 1967 feature In the Heat of the Night (Quincy Jones) and ended the 1960s with their first Oscar nomination and win for “The Windmills of Your Mind” (Michel Legrand). They earned Oscar nods for the next four years: “Pieces of Dreams” (Legrand), “All His Children” (Henry Mancini), “Marmalade, Molasses & Honey” (Maurice Jarre), and the chart-topping title song from The Way We Were (Marvin Hamlisch), which brought the Bergmans their second Oscar win.
They received their second Song of the Year Grammy nod in 1973 for “The Summer Knows” (Legrand) and their first win in 1975 for “The Way We Were,” which also brought them another trophy for best original film or TV score. In 1975, they earned their first Emmy nominations and win for Queen of the Stardust Ballroom, collecting another Emmy in 1977 for “The Big Event” (Leonard Rosenman). Below is Maureen Stapleton performing “Who Gave You Permission?” in Queen of the Stardust Ballroom.
In 1978, they received their fifth Grammy nod for A Star Is Born. They also returned to Broadway with Ballroom (Billy Goldenberg), which brought them a Grammy nomination, and to the top of the charts with “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” sung by Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond, which brought them a Grammy nod for Song of the Year. They ended the 1970s with an Oscar nomination for “The Last Time I Felt Like This” (Hamlisch). Below is Dorothy Loudon singing “Fifty Percent” from Ballroom.
In 1980, the Bergmans were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and earned an Oscar nod for “I’ll Never Say ‘Goodbye’” (David Shire). They had three Oscar nominations in 1983: “If We Were In Love” (John Williams), “How Do You Keep the Music Playing?” (Legrand), and chart-topper “It Might Be You” (Dave Grusin) from Tootsie, whose score also earned a Grammy nod. In 1984, they saw their third Oscar win and another Grammy nomination for Yentl (Legrand), which also earned Oscar nods for the songs “Papa, Can You Hear Me?” and chart-topper “The Way He Makes Me Feel” (which you can watch Barbra Streisand sing below).
They began the 1990s with Oscar and Grammy nominations for “The Girl Who Used to Be Me” (Hamlisch), then an Emmy nod for “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” (Hamlisch). In 1994, Bergman became the first woman president and board chair of ASCAP, serving until 2009. In 1995, she won an Emmy for “Ordinary Miracles” from Barbra: The Concert (which you can watch below) and, in 1996, received Oscar and Grammy nominations for “Moonlight” (Williams). She ended the decade with an Emmy win for “A Ticket to Dream.”
In 2001, Streisand released the album What Matters Most, recorded as a tribute to the Bergmans, and the couple received their seventh Emmy nomination for “On the Way to Becoming Me.” The following year, Bergman was named as the first chair of Library of Congress National Sound Recording Preservation Board and won the Recording Academy Governor’s Award. She the won the Grammy Trustees Award in 2013 and her final Emmy nomination in 2018 for “Just Getting Started” (Grusin).