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.
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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