MOVIE MUSIC UK

Composer, lyricist and playwright Leslie Bricusse died at his home in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, on October 19, 2021, at the age of 90.

One of the most successful British songwriters of the twentieth century, Bricusse enjoyed a career spanning more than six decades across cinema, Broadway and the West End. He won two Academy Awards and a Grammy, and wrote or co-wrote such enduring film songs as “Goldfinger,” “You Only Live Twice,” “Talk to the Animals,” “Pure Imagination” and “The Candy Man.”

Leslie Charles Bricusse was born in London on January 29, 1931, and studied at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he became president of the Footlights Revue Club and founded the Musical Comedy Club. His first student productions transferred to the West End, and after initially performing as well as writing, Bricusse increasingly concentrated on songwriting.

His most important early partnership was with Anthony Newley. Together they created the stage musicals Stop the World – I Want to Get Off and The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd, producing standards including “What Kind of Fool Am I?”, “Once in a Lifetime,” “Who Can I Turn To?” and “Feeling Good.” Their work quickly attracted Hollywood’s attention, and Bricusse developed a parallel career writing songs specifically for films.

Among his most celebrated screen collaborations was his work with John Barry on the James Bond series. Bricusse and Newley wrote the lyrics to Barry’s “Goldfinger” for the 1964 film, resulting in Shirley Bassey’s explosive title song, while Bricusse later supplied the lyrics for Nancy Sinatra’s more romantic “You Only Live Twice” in 1967. He and Barry also wrote “Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” for Thunderball, although the song itself was ultimately omitted from the finished film.

Bricusse’s first major film musical was Doctor Dolittle (1967), for which he wrote the songs and screenplay. Although the lavish Rex Harrison production was initially a commercial disappointment, its score included “Talk to the Animals,” “When I Look in Your Eyes” and “My Friend the Doctor.” “Talk to the Animals” won Bricusse the Academy Award for Best Original Song, establishing him firmly among Hollywood’s leading lyricists.

He followed it with Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1969), starring Peter O’Toole and Petula Clark, and the musical adaptation of Dickens’s Scrooge (1970), starring Albert Finney. The latter included “Thank You Very Much,” “I Hate People” and “A Christmas Carol,” and earned Bricusse Academy Award nominations for both its song score and “Thank You Very Much.”

His most enduring family film followed with Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (1971). Working again with Newley, Bricusse wrote a collection of songs including “The Candy Man,” “I’ve Got a Golden Ticket,” “Oompa Loompa” and, most famously, “Pure Imagination.” Although the film was only moderately successful on its original release, its music subsequently became embedded in popular culture, with “Pure Imagination” and “The Candy Man” enjoying especially long lives outside the film.

Another important collaborator was Henry Mancini. Their work together reached its peak with Blake Edwards’s Victor/Victoria (1982), for which Mancini composed the music and Bricusse supplied the lyrics to songs including “Le Jazz Hot,” “Crazy World” and “You and Me.” The pair shared the Academy Award for the film’s song score and adaptation, giving Bricusse his second Oscar.

Bricusse also enjoyed a long association with John Williams. He wrote lyrics for Williams’s love theme from Superman, and later collaborated with him on Home Alone, contributing the words to “Somewhere in My Memory” and “Star of Bethlehem.” “Somewhere in My Memory” received an Academy Award nomination, and the partnership continued with Hook and Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.

Away from cinema, Bricusse remained a major figure in musical theatre, with works including Pickwick, Jekyll & Hyde and stage adaptations of Doctor Dolittle and Scrooge. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1989 and appointed OBE for services to film and theatre in 2001.