Oscar-winning lyricist and husband wrote The Way We Were for Barbra Streisand
Marilyn Bergman never intended to write song lyrics until she tumbled down a flight of stairs and broke both her shoulders. Immobilised in a cast for 10 weeks, and with her dreams of being a pianist shattered, time fell heavy on her hands. ‘‘So I started writing lyrics,’’ she recalled. ‘‘I drifted into songwriting by accident because I couldn’t play the piano. The first song I wrote was published and I got an advance and thought, ‘This is easy.’ ’’
It wasn’t, and she had to wait a while before her next song was accepted. However, by then she had met future husband
Alan Bergman, and together they went on to become one of the most successful husband-and-wife songwriting teams in musical history.
As their chemistry developed, even their courtship was conducted through song. Alan Bergman wanted to propose but was restrained by having no money, so he wooed Marilyn by writing a song called That Face, and persuading Fred Astaire, her favourite singer, to record it.
Starting with Nice ’n’ Easy for Frank Sinatra, they proceeded to write lyrics to a series of timeless hits that seemed to define the human condition. ‘‘More than one person has told me that they were married to What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?, broke up to Where Do You Start?, and divorced to The Way We Were,’’ Marilyn noted. ‘‘That’s a great responsibility, being the soundtrack for people’s lives.’’
Sung by Barbra Streisand in Sydney Pollack’s film of the same name, The Way We Were won the Bergmans an Oscar for best original song. Another Oscar came for their songs in 1983’s Yentl, again starring Streisand, with whom the couple became lifelong friends after meeting in the early 1960s.
According to her husband, Marilyn – who has died aged 93 – was so moved by Streisand’s performance that tears were rolling down her cheeks. Backstage she told the singer, ‘‘Do you know how wonderful you are?’’ The admiration was mutual. The Bergmans’ lyrics were like ‘‘miniature threeact plays’’, Streisand said, ‘‘deeply personal and, at the same time, completely universal’’.
Although both were accomplished musicians, the couple mostly wrote lyrics for other composers and often for films. The Windmills of Your Mind, which won them another Oscar, was written for the 1968 movie The Thomas Crown Affair, and the song was used in an extended scene in which Steve McQueen sailed across the screen in a glider for several minutes. ‘‘It was heaven because we were used to being interrupted by dialogue or sound effects, and nothing ever ran very long,’’ Marilyn said.
Composers with whom they collaborated included Henry Mancini, Quincy Jones and John Williams, and among those who recorded their songs were Johnny Mathis, Tony Bennett, Diana Ross, Michael Jackson and Dusty Springfield.
Film-maker Norman Jewison paired the Bergmans with Jones to write music for his 1967 drama In the Heat of the Night, about a Philadelphia detective (Sidney Poitier) who becomes embroiled in a murder investigation in the Deep South. The gospel blues title song – with soulful lines such as ‘‘I could sell my soul for just a little light’’ – gave Ray Charles a Top 40 hit.
The Bergmans’ work for television included theme songs for Maude and Good Times, both produced by Norman Lear. They were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1980.
Marilyn Bergman was born Marilyn Ruth Katz in Brooklyn, New York. After studying piano at the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan, she gained a degree in psychology and English from New York University.
After her fateful fall in 1956, she was flown to Los Angeles, where her parents had moved. As she slowly recovered from her broken bones, Bob Russell, the uncle of a schoolfriend who had written hits for Duke Ellington, encouraged her to write song lyrics. Unable to hold a pen, she dictated them into a tape recorder.
In later life she served for 16 years as president of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, and led a campaign to extend and strengthen copyright protection. She also made fairer compensation for composers and songwriters in the digital era a focus of her advocacy.
‘‘Somebody made this table,’’ she told the Los Angeles Times in 1996, knocking on a tabletop, ‘‘and nobody would think of taking this table without paying for it. That’s called stealing. But if I write a song, which is no less of a creation than this table . . . and somebody takes it without paying for it, it’s very difficult to convince most people that’s stealing. Music is in the air.’’
Alan, 96, survives her, along with their daughter, Julie. Asked how she and Alan had managed to work together for so long while staying happily married, she replied with the same acuity she brought to her lyric writing. ‘‘The way porcupines make love,’’ she said. ‘‘Carefully.’’ – The Times, Washington Post
The Bergmans’ lyrics were like ‘‘miniature three-act plays’’, Barbra Streisand said, ‘‘deeply personal and, at the same time, completely universal’’.