Alan Bergman, the three-time Oscar-winning lyricist who teamed with his late wife, Marilyn Bergman, to form one of the most celebrated writing duos in the history of movie music, has died. He was 99.
Bergman, whose work includes such classics as “The Windmills of Your Mind” — wonderfully employed for the second-season finale of Severance — “Nice ’n’ Easy,” “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” and “The Way We Were,” died Thursday night of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles, his daughter, producer Julie Bergman Sender, told The Hollywood Reporter.
Marilyn Bergman died in January 2022 of respiratory failure at age 93.
The husband-and-wife lyricists worked particular magic with songstress Barbra Streisand and composers Marvin Hamlisch and Michel Legrand.
They won Academy Awards for the best original songs “The Way We Were” (shared with Hamlisch) from the 1973 Streisand film of that name and “Windmills of Your Mind” (shared with Legrand) from The Thomas Crown Affair (1968). They received another trophy for their score for Streisand’s Yentl (1983).
They met Streisand, a fellow Brooklynite, when she was performing in a New York club as a teenager and before she starred in her breakout 1968 movie Funny Girl. Their songs for her included “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” which they wrote with Neil Diamond. (Streisand and Diamond recorded the song separately and then, by popular demand, did it as a duet.)
Streisand also recorded their songs “On Rainy Afternoons,” “One Day” and “After the Rain.”
The Bergmans and Hamlisch won a Grammy Award for The Way We Were album, and the threesome shared an Oscar nom for “The Last Time I Felt Like This” from Same Time, Next Year (1978).
They also received Oscar noms with Legrand for “What Are You Doing the Rest of Your Life?” (from 1969’s The Happy Ending) and “Pieces of Dreams” from the 1970 film of that name; with Henry Mancini on “All His Children” (from 1971’s Sometimes a Great Notion); and with Maurice Jarre on “Marmalade, Molasses and Honey” (from 1972’s The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean).
The Bergmans wrote lyrics for the Ray Charles song that opens In the Heat of the Night (1967), with music by Quincy Jones. And they penned several songs for Sergio Mendes, including the lyrics to “Look Around.”
The Bergmans received an Oscar nom in every year from 1969-74 and collected three in 1983 and then three more the following year. They were nominated 16 times in all and entered the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1980.
They also wrote the lyrics for the opening theme songs for such TV series as Bracken’s World, Maude, Good Times, Alice and Brooklyn Bridge and received three career Emmy Awards.
“When you’re creating something, you sometimes have to go through a lot of stupid or silly things to spark your collaboration,” Alan said in a 1980 interview with People magazine. “You learn to say what comes into your head.”
Bergman met Marilyn Katz in 1956 (they wrote a song together that first day, “I Never Knew What Hit Me,” which they said was terrible) and married two years later. They were born in the same Brooklyn hospital (he three years before her; Streisand was born at the Jewish Hospital, too) and grew up near each other, but they did not meet until they had moved west.
After they wrote a song, it was Alan who would usually sing the number to the artist they were pitching, and he recorded an album of their tunes (Lyrically, Alan Bergman) in 2007.
Alan Bergman was born on Sept. 11, 1925. The son of a salesman, he studied at the University of North Carolina, graduating in music and theater arts, and at UCLA, where he earned his masters. He served in World War II, writing and directing Special Services programs.
Following the war, Bergman worked at CBS in Philadelphia as a TV director. While there, he met the famed lyricist, singer and songwriter Johnny Mercer, who encouraged him to write songs. Bergman then wrote for Marge Champion and Gower Champion and staged shows for Jo Stafford.
Mercer encouraged Bergman to move back to L.A., and the lyricist was introduced to Marilyn at a party by composer Lew Spence. All three teamed on Fred Astaire’s “That Face” in 1957, Dean Martin’s “Sleep Warm” in 1958 and Frank Sinatra’s “Nice ’n’ Easy” in 1960. (“That Face” also served as Alan’s engagement present to Marilyn.)
Bergman served four terms as president of the Academy Foundation, the educational and cultural arm of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
In addition to his daughter, a producer on films including Major League, G.I. Jane, The Fabulous Baker Boys and Six Days Seven Nights, Bergman is survived by his granddaughter, Emily.
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