Stephen Sondheim, Broadway songwriter, dead at 91

Acclaimed composer behind ‘West Side Story’ music

NEW YORK — Stephen Sondheim, the nonpareil Broadway composer whose decades-long career delivered brilliant musical productions from “West Side Story” to “Sweeney Todd” to “Into the Woods,” died Friday. The oft-honored songwriter was 91.

His sudden death at his Roxbury, Connecticut, home, was announced by his friend and lawyer, Richard Pappas, who said Sondheim had celebrated Thanksgiving in Connecticut at a dinner with friends. Sondheim’s death was first reported in The New York Times.

Sondheim, a protege of acclaimed songwriter Oscar Hammerstein II, collected a record eight Tony Awards — including best original Broadway score for three straight years in 197173 and a lifetime achievement Tony in 2008. He earned another eight Grammys, with singer Judy Collins’ version of Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns” winning song of the year in 1975.

And Sondheim captured an Oscar for his contribution to the 1990 soundtrack of “Dick Tracy,” leaving him only an Emmy away from EGOT status.

There was also a Pulitzer Prize for his Broadway smash “Sunday in the Park with George,” and a Presidential Medal of Freedom presented by President Barack Obama in 2015.

“As a composer and a lyricist, and a genre unto himself, Sondheim challenges his audiences,” said Obama. “His greatest hits aren’t tunes you can hum, they’re reflections on roads we didn’t take and wishes gone wrong. Relationships so frayed and fractured, there’s nothing left to do but send in the clowns.”

His songwriting prowess, as collaborator and sole creator, delivered timeless musicals that entertained generations of fans, with Oscar-winning director Stephen Spielberg working on a new film version of “West Side Story” in 2020.

Sondheim’s oft-acerbic and conversational lyrics signaled a break with the old theater, the mawkish sort of Broadway comedies spawned in the first half of the 20th century. Character development, plot and emotion replaced the outdated productions of the past.

“The whole idea of getting across to an audience and making them laugh, making them cry — just making them feel — is paramount to me,” he once said.

Early in his career, Sondheim was famously mentored by Oscar Hammerstein II, who paired with composer Richard Rodgers to redefine musical theater — starting with “Oklahoma!” in 1943.

“Hammerstein taught me, ‘Don’t write what I feel — write what you feel!’” recalled Sondheim, who took the advice and proceeded to do just that into the new millennium, and worked well into his 80s.

Stephen Joshua Sondheim was born in Manhattan, the only child of dress manufacturer Herbert Sondheim and his chief designer/wife Etta.

The precocious Sondheim showed an aptitude for music as a child, studying piano at age seven before writing his first musical at 15.