Marilyn Bergman, Oscar-winning composer, dies at age 93

NEW YORK – Marilyn Bergman, the Oscar-winning lyricist who teamed with hubby Alan Bergman connected “The Way We Were,” “How Do You Keep the Music Playing?” and hundreds of different songs, died astatine her Los Angeles location Saturday. She was 93.

She died of respiratory nonaccomplishment not related to COVID-19, according to a representative, Jason Lee. Her hubby was astatine her bedside erstwhile she died.

The Bergmans, who joined successful 1958, were among the astir enduring, palmy and productive songwriting partnerships, specializing successful introspective ballades for film, tv and the signifier that combined the romance of Tin Pan Alley with the polish of modern pop.

They worked with immoderate of the world’s apical melodists, including Marvin Hamlisch, Cy Coleman and Michel Legrand, and were covered by immoderate of the world’s top singers, from Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand to Aretha Franklin and Michael Jackson.

“If 1 truly is superior astir wanting to constitute songs that are original, that truly talk to people, you person to consciousness similar you created thing that wasn’t determination earlier — which is the eventual accomplishment, isn’t it?” Marilyn Bergman told The Huffington Post successful 2013. “And to marque thing that wasn’t determination before, you person to cognize what came earlier you.”

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Their songs included the sentimental Streisand-Neil Diamond duet “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers,” Sinatra’s snappy “Nice ’n’ Easy” and Dean Martin’s dreamy “Sleep Warm.” They helped constitute the uptempo themes to the 1970s sitcoms “Maude” and “Good Times” and collaborated connected words and euphony for the 1978 Broadway amusement “Ballroom.”

But they were champion known for their contributions to films, turning retired themes sometimes remembered much than the movies themselves. Among the highlights: Stephen Bishop’s “It Might Be You,” from “Tootsie”; Noel Harrison’s “The Windmills of Your Mind,” from “The Thomas Crown Affair”; and, for “Best Friends,” the James Ingram-Patti Austin duet “How Do You Keep the Music Playing?”

Their highest was “The Way We Were,” from the Streisand-Robert Redford romanticist play of the aforesaid name.

Set to Hamlisch’s moody, pensive melody with Streisand's voice, it was the top-selling opus of 1974 and an instant standard, impervious that good into the stone era, the nationalist inactive embraced an old-fashioned ballad.

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Fans would person struggled to place a representation of the Bergmans, oregon adjacent admit their names, but they had nary occupation summoning the words to “The Way We Were”:

“Memories, whitethorn beryllium beauteous and yet / What’s excessively achy to retrieve / We simply take to hide / So it’s the laughter / We volition retrieve / Whenever we retrieve / The mode we were.”

The Bergmans won 3 Oscars — for “The Way We Were,” “Windmills of Your Mind” and the soundtrack to Streisand’s “Yentl” — and received 16 nominations, 3 of them successful 1983 alone. They besides won 2 Grammys and 4 Emmys and were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Fellow composer Quincy Jones called quality of her decease crushing. “You, on with your beloved Alan, were the epitome of Nadia Boulanger's content that ‘an creator tin ne'er beryllium much oregon little than they are arsenic a quality being,’” helium tweeted.

“To those of america who loved the Bergmans' lyrics, Marilyn takes a spot our our hearts and souls with her today,” tweeted Norman Lear, creator of “Maude” and “Good Times."

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Marilyn Bergman became the archetypal pistillate elected to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and aboriginal served arsenic the seat and president. She was besides the archetypal seat of the National Recorded Sound Preservation Board of the Library of Congress.

Streisand worked with them passim her career, signaling much than 60 of their songs and dedicating an full album, “What Matters Most,” to their material. The Bergmans met her erstwhile she was 18, a nightclub singer, and soon became adjacent friends.

“I conscionable emotion their words, I emotion the sentiment, I emotion their exploration of emotion and relationships,” Streisand told The Associated Press successful 2011.

On Saturday, she posted a representation of herself with the Bergmans connected Twitter, saying they were similar family, arsenic good arsenic superb lyricists.

“We met implicit 60 years agone backstage astatine a small nightclub, and ne'er stopped loving each different and moving together,” Streisand wrote. “Their songs are timeless, and truthful is our love. May she remainder successful peace.”

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Like Streisand, the Bergmans were Jews from lower-middle-class families successful Brooklyn. They were calved successful the aforesaid hospital, Alan 4 years earlier than Marilyn, whose unmarried sanction was Katz, and they were raised successful the aforesaid vicinity and were fans of euphony and movies since childhood.

They some moved to Los Angeles successful 1950 — Marilyn had studied English and science astatine New York University — but didn’t conscionable until a fewer years later, erstwhile they were moving for the aforesaid composer.

The Bergmans appeared to beryllium escaped of the boundaries and tensions of galore songwriting teams. They likened their chemistry to housework (one washes, 1 dries) oregon to shot (pitching and catching), and were truthful successful tune with each different that they struggled to callback who wrote a fixed lyric.

“Our concern arsenic writers oregon arsenic hubby and wife?” Marilyn told The Huffington Post erstwhile asked astir their relationship. “I deliberation the aspects of some are the same: Respect, trust, each of that is indispensable successful a penning concern oregon a concern business oregon successful a marriage.”

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Besides her husband, Bergman is survived by their daughter, Julie Bergman.

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AP media writer David Bauder contributed to this report.

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