Award-Winning Composer Cy Coleman Dead at 75
Coleman was born Seymour Kaufman in the Bronx on June 14, 1929. A classically trained child prodigy and concert pianist turned popular songwriter and Broadway tunesmith, Coleman made his Carnegie Hall debut at age seven and by his late teens had become somewhat of a society darling, performing jazz piano in sophisticated New York nightclubs. By the 1950s, he turned to composing pop standards with lyricists Joseph McCarthy Jr, Bob Hilliard and Hal David for the likes of Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole and ran his own New York nightspot, The Playroom.
Teaming with lyricist Carolyn Leigh, Coleman wrote such hit songs as "Witchcraft" and "Firefly" before the pair composed their first two Broadway efforts--the spirited Lucille Ball vehicle Wildcat in 1960, which produced the showstopper "Hey, Look Me Over", and the Neil Simon musical satire Little Me in 1962. In 1966, Coleman wed his scores to the words of veteran lyricist Dorothy Fields for Sweet Charity which is scheduled to have a Broadway revival in the spring and in 1973 for Seesaw. Subsequently, he created I Love My Wife in 1977 and composed the circus musical Barnum in 1980, which also marked his debut as a Broadway producer. Coleman has won three Tony Awards: for the comic operetta On the Twentieth Century in 1978 with lyricists Betty Comden and Adolph Green; for City of Angels in 1990 with David Zippel; and for The Will Rogers Follies in 1991 again with Comden and Green. In 1996, he released an album of songs for a proposed musical, The Life that included tracks by Liza Minnelli and George Burns. With lyrics by Ira Gassman, it is the story of the denizens of NYC's 42nd Street, including prostitutes and pimps. This, in turn, led to a full-scale Broadway mounting the following year. Coleman also wrote the music for Grace, The Musical, a fictionalized biography of Grace Kelly. Two of his musicals premiered within the last year: Like Jazz which is expected to open on Broadway in Fall 2005 at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles and The Great Ostrovsky at the Prince Musical Theatre in Philadelphia.
He earned two Emmys for writing Shirley MacLaine's TV specials If They Could See Me Now and Gypsy In My Soul. He scored the films Father Goose, Power, Garbo Talks, Family Business and Sweet Charity, for which he also won an Oscar nomination. Coleman was honored with 13 Grammy nominations, a tribute at Avery Fisher Hall and the Irvin Feld Humanitarian Award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews. He was a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame and a recipient of their Johnny Mercer Award. Coleman was an elected member of the ASCAP Board of Directors and served as its Vice President. He was also the president of Notable Music Co., Inc.
Coleman is survived by his wife Shelby, his daughter Lily, two sisters and several nieces and nephews.