Alan and Marilyn Bergman | |
|---|---|
 Marilyn and Alan Bergman in 2002 | |
| Occupation |
|
| Years active | 1950s–2017 |
| Notable work | Seenotable works |
| Children | 1 |
| Alan Bergman | |
| Born | (1925-09-11)September 11, 1925 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | July 17, 2025(2025-07-17) (aged 99) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Education | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University of California, Los Angeles |
| Spouse | |
| Marilyn Bergman | |
| Birth name | Marilyn Keith Katz |
| Born | (1928-11-10)November 10, 1928 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | January 8, 2022(2022-01-08) (aged 93) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Education | The High School of Music & Art New York University |
| Spouse | |
Alan Bergman (September 11, 1925 – July 17, 2025) andMarilyn Keith Bergman (néeKatz; November 10, 1928 – January 8, 2022) were an American songwriting duo. Married from 1958 until Marilyn's death, together they wrote music and lyrics for numerous celebrated television, film, and stage productions. The Bergmans enjoyed a successful career, honored with fourEmmys, threeOscars, and twoGrammys (includingSong of the Year). They are in theSongwriters Hall of Fame.[1]
Alan Bergman was born on September 11, 1925,[2] inCrown Heights, Brooklyn, the son of Ruth (Margulies), a homemaker and community volunteer, and Samuel Bergman, who worked in children's clothing sales.[3] He studied atUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and earned his master's degree in music atUCLA.
Marilyn Bergman was born on November 10, 1928, also, in Crown Heights, coincidentally at the same hospital (Brooklyn Jewish Hospital and Medical Center)[4] where Alan had been born three years earlier, and was the daughter of Edith (Arkin) and Albert A. Katz.[5] Both Alan and Marilyn were fromJewish families. Marilyn studied music atThe High School of Music & Art in New York before studying psychology and English atNew York University.[6]
Despite the geographical proximity of their upbringing in New York, the Bergmans did not meet until they had both moved to Los Angeles in the late 1950s. The Bergmans married in 1958 and had a daughter, Julie Bergman Sender, who works as an independent film producer.[7][8]
Marilyn Bergman died from respiratory failure on January 8, 2022, at the age of 93.[9] Alan Bergman died of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles, on July 17, 2025, at the age of 99.[10]
Alan Bergman worked as atelevision director and songwriter at Philadelphia'sWCAU-TV in the early 1950s.Johnny Mercer encouraged Alan to move to Los Angeles and become a professional songwriter.[7][11] Marilyn had moved to California and was friends with songwriterBob Russell and his wife, Anna, and later described "drifting into songwriting really by accident because I had a fall and broke my shoulder and couldn't play piano so I started writing lyrics". Marilyn also felt that she lacked the discipline or talent required to become a concert pianist. The Bergmans had both become collaborators with composerLew Spence and only met when Spence suggested they all work together.
With Spence, the Bergmans wrote the lyrics for the title tracks forDean Martin's 1958 albumSleep Warm andFrank Sinatra's 1960 albumNice 'n' Easy.[12][13] In 1961, the Bergmans wrote their first title song for a motion picture, forThe Right Approach, composed by Spence. In 1964, the Bergmans wrote lyrics to their firstBroadway musical,Something More! to music bySammy Fain.[14]
The Bergmans wrote lyrics for "In the Heat of the Night" with music byQuincy Jones for the 1967 filmof the same name, which has been described as their "breakthrough".[15] The couple had later work with Jones onMichael Jackson's soundtrack album forE.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), for which they wrote the lyrics for "Someone In the Dark", and the 2007Ennio Morricone tribute albumWe All Love Ennio Morricone for which they wrote lyrics to "I Knew I Loved You", which was sung byCeline Dion.[16]
The Bergmans' long relationship with the French composerMichel Legrand began in the late 1960s. The couple wrote English lyrics for Legrand's song "The Windmills of Your Mind" featured inThe Thomas Crown Affair (1968), which won them their firstAcademy Award for Best Original Song at the41st Academy Awards in 1969. The Bergmans and Legrand were subsequently nominated for the Best Original Song award in the following two years for "What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?" fromThe Happy Ending (1969), and "Pieces of Dreams"from the 1970 film of the same name. The couple's minor work with Legrand in this period included thecontrafactum (rather than a translation) "You Must Believe in Spring" of Maxence's song from the filmThe Young Girls of Rochefort, "Listen to the Sea" fromIce Station Zebra (1968), and "Nobody Knows" and "Sweet Gingerbread Man" fromThe Magic Garden of Stanley Sweetheart (1970).[17] Legrand also featured eight of the Bergmans' lyrics onhis 1972 album with Sarah Vaughan.[18]
The Bergmans teamed up withMarvin Hamlisch to writeBarbra Streisand's hit "The Way We Were" used in thefilm of the same name. The song was labeled byTurner Classic Movies's Andrea Passafiume as "one of the most recognizable songs in the world".[19] Hamlisch and the Bergmans won theAcademy Award for Best Original Song at the46th Academy Awards, theGolden Globe Award for Best Original Song in 1974, and theGrammy Award for Song of the Year in 1975.[20][21] According to theNational Endowment for the Arts andRecording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in their list of the top 365 "Songs of the Century", the single was placed at number 298.[22]
In 1983, at the55th Academy Awards, the Bergmans' work on "How Do You Keep the Music Playing?" composed by Legrand for the filmBest Friends was nominated for the Best Original Song award. The Bergmans became the first songwriters ever to have written three of the five nominations for the Academy Award for Best Song, being nominated for "It Might Be You" fromTootsie (composed byDave Grusin), and "If We Were in Love" fromYes, Giorgio (composed byJohn Williams), in addition to "How Do You Keep the Music Playing?". At the subsequent Academy Awards, their work with Legrand on the 1983 filmYentl won them theAcademy Award for Best Original Song Score or Adaptation Score, with the songs "Papa, Can You Hear Me?" and "The Way He Makes Me Feel" from the film also being nominated for the Best Original Song award.
The Bergmans were also co-writers of "An American Reunion", the opening ceremony of the inaugural festivities at Washington D.C.'sLincoln Memorial that markedBill Clinton's first term asPresident of the United States in January 1993.[7] In the late 1990s the Bergmans received their final nominations for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, for "Moonlight" (composed byJohn Williams) for the 1995 filmSabrina and "Love Is Where You Are" (music byMark Isham) for the 1999 filmAt First Sight. Also in 1999, the Bergmans received their lastPrimetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics for "A Time to Dream"" (music by Hamlisch) for the AFI'sAFI's 100 Years 100 Movies Special.
TheKennedy Center commissioned the Bergmans to write a song cycle in 2001, they chose to collaborate with the composerCy Coleman. The resulting work,Portraits in Jazz: A Gallery of Songs was performed on May 17, 2002.[8]The Bergmans wrote the lyrics toBilly Goldenberg's television musicalQueen of the Stardust Ballroom which won the couple their thirdPrimetime Emmy Award Outstanding Achievement in Special Musical Material, it was later the couple's second Broadway show,Ballroom, which opened in 1978.[23]
In 2007, Alan Bergman released his first album as a vocalist,Lyrically, Alan Bergman, featuring lyrics written by him and his wife and arranged byAlan Broadbent and Jeremy Lubbock.[24] Reviewing the album forAllmusic, John Bush praised Bergman's "excellent interpretive skills" and Christopher Loundon in theJazzTimes described Bergman's voice as a "...revelation, suggesting both the wise, elder Sinatra and the astutely mellow Fred Astaire, with a touch of the offbeat dreaminess of Chet Baker."[25]
The Bergmans had a long professional relationship with Barbra Streisand. In addition to their work on the filmsYentl andThe Way We Were, in which Streisand starred, the Bergmans wrote Streisand's One Voice concert which was releasedas a live album in 1987. Marilyn also served as the executive producer of the One Voice concert. The Bergmans' song "Ordinary Miracles" fromStreisand's 1994 concert tour and HBO special won the couple their third Emmy Award, with the couple's script for the tour also being nominated for a CableACE Award. The Bergmans received their fifth Emmy nomination for the song "On the Way to Becoming Me" (music by Marvin Hamlisch) from the AFI tribute to Streisand.[6] The Bergmans also served as board members of Streisand's charitable foundation.[26] Streisand's 2011 albumWhat Matters Most was recorded in tribute to the Bergmans and featured ten songs by the couple that she had not previously recorded.[27]
In 2017, Alan and Marilyn Bergman collaborated with playwrightJosh Ravetch onChasing Mem'ries: A Different Kind of Musical[28] which opened at The Geffen Playhouse and was the recipient of the Edgerton Foundation New Play Award. In 2020, Alan collaborated with Ravetch again on the sequel toChasing Mem'ries, A Different Kind of Musical, Backyard Mem'ries which was workshopped later that year. Bergman continued his collaboration with Ravetch on the one woman show featuring Supermodel, Beverly Johnson,Beverly Johnson: In Vogue which opened in 2024 on the 50th anniversary of Johnson becoming the first black woman to grace the cover of American Vogue. Bergman wrote the signature song,The Other Side, for the show which opened off-Broadway at 59e59. His final collaboration with Ravetch was the play,Are We Alone? Ravetch collaborated with Harvard Astrophysicist, Professor Avi Loeb, The song, The Stars Have Mem'ries, underscores a montage of the greatest scientific breakthroughs from Galileo to the JWST. The play received a workshop production in Cambridge Massachusetts in 2025, and is slated to open in 2026.
The Bergmans were the recipients of numerous academic honors and lifetime achievement awards. The couple wereinducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1980, and subsequently received theJohnny Mercer Award in 1997.[7] The Bergmans were awarded honorarydoctorates by theBerklee College of Music in 1995. They also received the Lifetime Achievement Award from theNational Academy of Songwriters that year. In 1996, the couple were the recipients of the inaugural Fiorello Lifetime Achievement Award from New York City'sFiorello H. LaGuardia High School. The Bergmans were later inducted into the LaGuardia High School's Hall of Fame.[8][29] In 1986, Marilyn was awarded theWomen in FilmCrystal Award.[30] Marilyn was later appointed an Officer of theOrder of Arts and Letters by theFrench Ministry of Culture in 1996.[31] In 1998, Marilyn received an Honorary doctorate fromTrinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, and in 2011, Alan was presented with a Distinguished Alumnus award from his alma mater, the University of North Carolina. The Bergmans were the recipients of theNational Music Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award in 2002, Marilyn was also the recipient of the Creative Arts Award from the Kaufman Cultural Center that same year.[7]
The Bergmans held several executive positions in organizations connected with the arts. Marilyn served as the president and chairman of the board of theAmerican Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) for fifteen years, from 1994 to 2009. Bergman was elected president and chairman after she had served five terms, since 1984, as the first woman ever to serve on ASCAP's board of directors. Marilyn completed her term as president in April 2009 and has then continued to serve on the board of ASCAP.[6] Marilyn also served two terms as president of CISAC, The International Confederation of Performing Rights Societies. Alan has served on the boards of directors of The Johnny Mercer Foundation, The Artists' Rights Foundation, and The Jazz Bakery.[6] The Bergmans also served on the executive committee of the Music Branch of theAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and were board members of the National Academy of Songwriters.[7] Marilyn also served as the president of theNational Recording Preservation Board.[32]
In 2022, Marilyn was inducted into theWomen Songwriters Hall of Fame.[33]
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Notable lyrics and compositions by the Bergmans include:
STAGE PLAYS
Beverly Johnson: In Vogue off-BroadwayWere Not Much Closer ti\o the Other Side Written and directed by Josh
Are We Alone? Written by Harvard Astrophysicist Avi Loeb and Josh Ravetch. Directed. by Josh Ravetch
Alan Bergman song,The stars Have Mem'ries
Alan Bergman wrote every day.
| Artists | |
|---|---|
Alan Bergman | |
| Marilyn Bergman | |