MARILYN BERGMAN
(1928-2022)
Marilyn Bergman
(nee Keith), one half of the
multi-award-winning lyric writing
team Alan & Marilyn Bergman,
died in Los Angeles on January
7th aged 93. Before her marriage
to Alan Bergman (1925- ) in 1958,
she had penned the lyric for the
popular TV series Champion
The Wonder Horse (1955),
sung by Frankie Laine. Alan
Bergman actually wooed his
wife-to-be with a song he wrote
for Fred Astaire in 1957, That
Face.
The Bergmans'
collaboration began with Yellow
Bird – recorded in the
USA by The Kingston Trio and in
the UK by Roger Whittaker –
and Nice 'n' Easy, a
1960 hit for Frank Sinatra (music
by Lew Spence). The couple's
first Oscar-winning song was The
Windmills Of Your Mind
(music by Michel Legrand,
original French lyrics by Eddy
Marnay) sung - after Andy
Williams had turned it down - by
Noel Harrison over the opening
sequence of the 1968 film '…and
full of extraordinary circular
metaphors such as:
Like a clock whose
hands are sweeping past the
minutes of its face
And the world is like an apple
whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find in
the windmills of your mind!
Lyrics © BMG
Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music
Publishing LLC
Michel Legrand
became closely associated with
the Bergmans thereafter, their
collaborations including What
Are You Doing The Rest Of Your
Life? (1969), How Do You
Keep The Music Playing?
(1982) and the entire score for
Barbra Streisand’s epic
motion picture Yentl
(1983) which won them their third
Oscar. Their second had been ten
years earlier in 1973 for The
Way We Were (music by Marvin
Hamlisch) from the film of the
same name starring Barbra
Streisand and Robert Redford.
Streisand formed a lifelong
partnership with the Bergmans
thereafter and scored a major hit
with You Don’t Bring Me
Flowers, in which she
duetted with Neil Diamond, who
wrote the music.
Other composers to
benefit from Alan & Marilyn
Bergman's lyrical expertise
included Sammy Fain, Maurice
Jarre, Quincy Jones, Henry
Mancini, Johnny Mandel, Ennio
Morricone, David Shire and John
Williams.
As the first woman
President & Chairman of ASCAP
(The American Society of
Composers & Publishers) from
1994 to 2005 she oversaw a series
of noteworthy achievements, all
of which have had a positive and
lasting impact on music creators.
We offer our
sincere condolences to Alan
Bergman, Marilyn’s husband
of 63 years, on his sad loss.
© Anthony
Wills 2022
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