Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 21, 1994 TAG: 9409230038
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
Styne, who won an Oscar and a Tony and wrote 1,500 songs during a seven-decade career that continued into the 1990s, died at Mount Sinai Hospital, where he had undergone open-heart surgery six weeks ago.
Styne wrote for some of the theater's biggest names and most distinctive performers, once saying, ``Without the rendition there is no song.''
He gave both Streisand and Carol Channing their signature songs - ``People'' and ``Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend,'' respectively.
He also created music for Judy Holliday in ``Bells Are Ringing''; Phil Silvers and Nancy Walker in ``Do Re Mi''; Silvers and Nanette Fabray in ``High Button Shoes''; Bert Lahr and Dolores Gray in ``Two on the Aisle''; Carol Burnett in ``Fade Out-Fade In''; Robert Morse in ``Sugar''; and Mary Martin, for whom he wrote several songs for ``Peter Pan.''
Styne was the last link to such master American stage composers as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern and Richard Rodgers, who honed their craft on Broadway in the 1920s and '30s and whose tunes were the pop music of the day.
``He gave me the divine gift of `Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend,' and anyone who ever worked with him would say Jule Styne is a star's best friend,'' Channing, who became a star singing Styne's music in ``Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,'' said Tuesday.
Styne's masterpiece was ``Gypsy,'' written for Merman, who played the domineering mother of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. The 1959 musical, which has lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, includes the defiant ``Everything's Coming Up Roses'' and the lyrical ``Small World.''
The show has had a remarkable life, receiving successful Broadway revivals in 1974 with Angela Lansbury and again in 1989 with Tyne Daly. Bette Midler played Mama Rose in a well-received TV version last year.
Besides Sondheim, Styne worked with such lyricists as Frank Loesser, Sammy Cahn, Betty Comden and Adolph Green.
He won an Academy Award for ``Three Coins in the Fountain,'' from the 1954 movie of the same name, and a Tony for ``Hallelujah Baby'' in 1968. ``People,'' from ``Funny Girl,'' was a top-five chart hit in 1964 for Streisand at a time when few nonrock songs topped the charts.
Last year, his musical ``The Red Shoes,'' based on the movie about a ballerina who sacrifices everything for her art, closed after five performances. It was his last Broadway show.
Survivors include his wife, Margaret, two sons, a daughter, seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Funeral services are Friday.
by CNB