LOS ANGELES (CelebrityAccess) — Alan Bergman, the Oscar-winning songwriter who, with his wife Marilyn, collaborated on lyrics for film and television—including hits such as “The Way We Were” and “It Might Be You”—died on Thursday in Los Angeles. He was 99.
His passing was announced by publicist Ken Sunshine, a spokesperson for the family, according to The New York Times.
Born in New York, Bergman discovered a passion for songwriting as a teenager. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and later studied music at UCLA.
After serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, Bergman directed television shows for CBS before relocating to Los Angeles in the mid-1950s to pursue songwriting full-time.
In 1958, he met lyricist Marilyn Keith (later Bergman), and the two married the following year, beginning an enduring personal and professional partnership that became one of the most celebrated songwriting duos of the modern era.
The duo’s early songwriting success included hits for artists such as Dean Martin (“Sleep Warm”) and Frank Sinatra (“Nice ’n’ Easy”), as well as songs for film and television, including “The Windmills of Your Mind” (The Thomas Crown Affair) and “In the Heat of the Night” (for the film of the same name).
The Bergmans maintained a long professional relationship with Barbra Streisand, contributing lyrics for several of her films, including Yentl and The Way We Were. The latter earned them an Oscar and two Grammy Awards and became one of Streisand’s signature songs.
In total, the Bergmans were nominated for 16 Academy Awards. They made history in 1982–83 when three of the five Best Original Song nominations were their work: “How Do You Keep the Music Playing?”, “It Might Be You,” and “If We Were In Love.”
The Bergmans were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1980 and received the prestigious Johnny Mercer Award in 1997.
Alan was preceded in death by Marilyn, who passed away in 2022.
