Charles Strouse

Charles Louis Strouse, born June 7, 1928, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, was an American composer whose Broadway credits span more than five decades. He died at his Manhattan home on May 15, 2025, at the age of 96. His parents, Ethel and Ira Strouse, dealt with physical and mental health difficulties, and the family regularly gathered around the piano — played by his mother — to sing together. Those childhood memories later informed the iconic credit sequence of the Norman Lear television series All in the Family, in which Carroll O'Connor and Jean Stapleton perform at a piano. Strouse described himself as a Jewish atheist, and after his sister died young from breast cancer, he said he no longer believed in God.

Strouse trained at the Eastman School of Music, where his teachers included Arthur Berger, David Diamond, Aaron Copland, and Nadia Boulanger. He had originally aimed for a career in classical music, but Boulanger encouraged him to embrace his gift for lighter material, telling him that helping people forget illness and suffering was itself a calling. He began collaborating with lyricist Lee Adams in 1952, and the two had accumulated years of songwriting experience before their first Broadway musical reached the stage.

That debut, Bye Bye Birdie, opened in 1960 and earned Strouse his first Tony Award for Best Musical. Their next collaboration, All American, followed in 1962, with a book by Mel Brooks; it closed after 80 performances but produced the song "Once Upon a Time," subsequently recorded by Perry Como, Eddie Fisher, Al Martino, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, and Bobby Darin, among many others. Golden Boy, also with Adams, opened in 1964 starring Sammy Davis Jr. and ran for 568 performances. It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman arrived in 1966, based on the comic strip; it closed after 129 performances but introduced the song "You've Got Possibilities," sung by Linda Lavin, and its theme was adopted by Washington, D.C. television station WTOP for news broadcasts.

Applause opened in 1970, starring Lauren Bacall, with a book by Betty Comden and Adolph Green and lyrics by Adams. The production won Strouse his second Tony Award for Best Musical. In 1977, he adapted another comic strip for the stage, producing Annie, which contained the song "Tomorrow." The show won Strouse his third Tony Award, this time for Best Original Score, along with two Grammy Awards. Jay-Z's 1999 quadruple-platinum recording Hard Knock Life sampled "It's the Hard Knock Life" from Annie and won the Grammy for Best Rap Album of the year as well as the Billboard R&B Album of the Year. At the time of Strouse's death in 2025, he was the sole surviving member of the Annie creative team, following the deaths of book writer Thomas Meehan in 2017 and director Martin Charnin in 2019.

Additional Broadway credits include A Broadway Musical and Dance a Little Closer, the latter featuring lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and closing after a single performance in 1983. Other stage works include Charlie and Algernon, which premiered in London in 1979 before reaching Broadway in 1981; Rags, which closed after four performances and 18 previews in 1986; Nick and Nora, which closed after nine performances in 1993; and An American Tragedy, with lyrics by David Shaber, performed at Muhlenberg College in 1995. A stage adaptation of the Paddy Chayefsky film Marty, with lyrics by Adams and Strouse and a book by Rupert Holmes, premiered at Boston's Huntington Theatre in October 2002, starring John C. Reilly. Real Men, for which Strouse wrote both music and lyrics, premiered at the Coconut Grove Playhouse in Miami in January 2005, and Studio premiered at Theatre Building Chicago in August 2006. Minsky's, with a book by Bob Martin and lyrics by Susan Birkenhead, opened at the Ahmanson Theatre in January 2009.

Strouse also composed for film and television. His film scores include Bonnie and Clyde in 1967, The Night They Raided Minsky's in 1968 with Adams, There Was a Crooked Man in 1970, and All Dogs Go to Heaven in 1989. He wrote the music and lyrics for the 1987 HBO animated special Lyle, Lyle Crocodile. He and Adams composed "Those Were the Days," the theme song for All in the Family. Strouse won Emmy Awards for his music in television adaptations of both Bye Bye Birdie and Annie. In 1958, his song "Born Too Late" reached number seven on the Billboard charts.

His work extended into orchestral and operatic composition. His opera Nightingale, starring Sarah Brightman, had a successful London run in 1982 and received subsequent productions. Concerto America, composed to commemorate the September 11 attacks and the spirit of New York City, premiered with the Boston Pops in 2002. In 1979, Strouse founded the ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop in New York, providing a forum for emerging composers and lyricists. He received the 1999 ASCAP Foundation Richard Rodgers Award, the Oscar Hammerstein Award, and was inducted into both the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2001 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He also received the Emperor Has No Clothes Award from the Freedom From Religion Foundation at its 34th annual national convention on October 8, 2011. Strouse was married to director-choreographer Barbara Siman until her death on February 16, 2023; they had four children.