Posted on 05/22/2011 2:48:19 PM PDT by doug from upland
Broadway Flop IN MY LIFE's Oscar-winning Composer Brooks Commits Suicide
Sunday, May 22, 2011; Posted: 02:05 PM - by BWW News Desk
Oscar-winning songwriter Joseph Brooks, famous for writing "You Light Up My Life," who has been awaiting trial on sex assault charges for two rapes, a sodomy case and two sexual assaults has committed suicide, reports the Associated Press.
The wire service reports that he was found in his Manhattan apartment and that "Police say Brooks was found Sunday with a plastic dry-cleaning bag around his head and a towel wrapped around his neck. There also was a helium tank with a hose attached. An autopsy will determine the cause of death. Police say a suicide note was found but they didn't reveal its contents."
Brooks, 71, allegedly seduced the women through Craigslist web postings and lured them to his upper East Side apartment with with promises of parts in his next movie. He purportedly boasted about his Oscar and offered to show it to them at his pad.
Brooks was the man behind the 2005 Broadway musical IN MY LIFE. The original book musical flopped, running 23 previews and 61 regular performances. In addition to writing the music, lyrics and book for IN MY LIFE, Brooks also directed the Broadway production. IN MY LIFE told how "a musician with Tourette's syndrome and a journalist with obsessive compulsive disorder meet cute at a grocery store-with some help from above- and begin an unlikely romance that proves that life's greatest affliction is the one they share-true love," as production notes described the show.
Brooks' "You Light Up My Life" is the most successful single record in the history of recorded music, selling more than seven million copies and staying at number one in the county for more than three months; total record sales of albums and singles of the song exceed 15 million. It received the Academy Award for Best Song when it was featured in the film of the same name (also written, produced and directed by Brooks), as well as winning the Grammy, Golden Globe, American Music, and People's Choice awards. In addition, Brooks has garnered numerous platinum and gold albums and singles, 21 Clio Awards (advertising's highest honor), the Golden Palm Award given at The Cannes Film Festival; 75 other advertising awards (he is a preeminent composer/lyricist and producer in the industry), and multiple ASCAP awards for pop and country music. Having conducted the New York Philharmonic, The London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras, Brooks also composed the music and co-wrote the lyrics for Metropolis: The Musical, which was staged at London's Picadilly Theatre.
Oh, Dougie, that’s cruel.
For everyone else, here is Debbie Boone singing one of my all time favorites, You Light Up My Life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b07-yKnKRMQ
I really liked that song about the first 100 times I heard it but then the 2nd week came by and it got old real fast. Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman” is another that burned through quick and who can ever forget “We Are The World” which got old in about 2 days.
Because you don’t like it? I always wonder why people say such nasty things.
+1
Well......you have to give him some credit. He did save the taxpayers a load of $$ in not having trials for all his transgressions.
So he was the person the Charlie Sheen character was based on.
Escuse me, I said such a thing because I was born with the humor gene.
Tank of helium? Wonder if he floated.
LOL!
You are not alone, my friend.
When I nominated this song for the best ballad ever written, most of the men voted YECH!!
Of course, most women love it, naturally.
Despise it.
Sounds like another pervert took the self-inflicted dirt nap instead of going to trial on a bunch of sex charges.Saved the state a bunch of money on court costs.
Met Debbie and her Dad at a concert. One of my Sister’s good friends was a backup singer. Although I’m not into that kinda music at all, it was a great concert. And Deb and her Dad are very nice people. I reminded Pat of a flip side of one of his earliest recordings. He enjoyed that!
“Everyone’s gonna have Religion and Glory
Everyones gonna be singin’ that story
etc..”
Nice people!
Not to wxcuse his behavior but At 71, he must have been suffering from dementia.
Oh, okay. I enjoyed it at first. But there is such a thing as being overexposed. It got a little tiring.
HOT BLOODED and UNDER MY THUMB, on the other hand, never got tiring. :)
This is GREAT news!
Too bad he didn’t do this a couple of years before he raped those women.
Ebony and Ivory is one of my all time favorites....
Brooks didn't write THAT one did he?
He did have quite a line - hey, sweetie, wanna see my Oscar? I’ll let you touch it.
Hey, look at #19. That one really deserves a comment.
Before he wrote it would have been better.
Many humor-deficient people require gene therapy. Some severe cases require Gene Gene therapy. 
Even worse than Muskrat Love?
“You Light Up My Life” Is the worst thing about be able to hear. The song is the aural equivalent of aluminum foil chewing gum. If only they could bury all 15 million copies of it with the miserable bastard.
Muskrat Love was far worse. It was mocked in the Lemmon/Garner movie, “My Fellow Americans.”
Exactly.....I hated that song....
I am not saying he wrote all those songs just that people got sick of them. Paul Mcartney wrote bony and Ivory
You can’t make this stuff up. Shudder.
Cheesy song. Sleazy writer. Scumbag son. His assistant who set up the rapes is named Lucifer (sans f).
Rape is always an expression of power and dominance over women. Not so much about sexual attraction and gratification. May this guy rest in hell.
Prayers and condolences to the victims and family.
I’m waiting for the author of Wind Beneath My Wings to check out!
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Here is the first comment =
Women were so fine back then and respected themselves. Nowadays they're just skank hos with tramp stamps on their backs.
“Police say a suicide note was found but they didn’t reveal its contents.”
BROOKS WAS HERE.
Brooks’ “You Light Up My Life” is the most successful single record in the history of recorded music history!
He wanted to go out sounding like a cartoon duck?
Yes. I'd estimate by about the third bar.
The Pat Boone song you are thinking of is titled Wonderful Time Up There from 1958. My favorite Pat Boone song is (Welcome) New Lovers from 1960.
If Ever I See You Again - seems he played himself in it, or something close to himself.
I've never been clear why so many insist on this distinction. It is perfectly obvious quite a few people, mostly men, obtain their greatest sexual gratification through the expression of power and dominance.
Personally I think it goes back to the 60s "new morality," under which all sex was good. Therefore, if some expression of sexuality was indisputably bad, it was just redefined as not being "really sex."
May this guy rest in hell.
Agreed.
Yeah. I know that. But I bought the song for the A side, but once I heard the B side, I never played the A side again. Always been a Boogie Woogie fanatic. That song followed the B/W blueprint, so I loved it. What was the A side?
Thanks for posting, doug. Interesting.
Are you trying to make light of his life ;-)
Yeah, it does, I give up. People say stuff they would probably never say to someone in person, I guess because they think it’s funny and because they think it doesn’t matter. I suppose they wouldn’t say it to the person’s family. We just live in such harsh times. And, fwiw, I apologize. You’re probably a nice person.
I really was posting tongue in cheek, you know.
Maybe I had a headache...yeah...that’s the ticket! ;)
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