Dean Pitchford

Dean Pitchford, born July 29, 1951, in Honolulu, Hawaii, is an American songwriter, screenwriter, director, actor, and novelist whose career spans Broadway performance, film, and popular music. His work has earned him an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award, along with nominations for three additional Oscars, two more Golden Globes, eight Grammy Awards, and two Tony Awards.

Pitchford graduated from Saint Louis High School in Honolulu in 1968, having attended Catholic schools throughout his youth. Before leaving Hawaii, he performed as an actor and singer with the Honolulu Community Theatre, the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra, and the Honolulu Theatre for Youth. At Yale University he participated in campus drama groups while also working with the Wooster Square Revival, an experimental theatre company that provided acting opportunities to recovering addicts and alcoholics. In 1969 he returned to Honolulu to assist authors Faye Hammel and Sylvan Levey in updating the guidebook Hawai'i on $5 and $10 A Day and to research Trans World Airlines' Budget Guide to Hawai'i, an early entry in what became the TWA Getaway Guides series.

His Broadway performing career began when he was cast in the off-Broadway production of Godspell in New York City in 1971, and he subsequently starred in the show at Ford's Theatre. In 1972 he appeared on Broadway, and Bob Fosse cast him as Pippin in the Broadway production of Pippin in 1975. During his run in that show, Pitchford appeared in more than 100 commercials for brands including Dr Pepper, McDonald's, Lay's, and M&M's. His early songwriting efforts, performed in Manhattan cabarets, led to collaborations with composers Stephen Schwartz, Alan Menken, and Rupert Holmes. In 1979 he collaborated with Peter Allen to write new songs for Allen's one-man Broadway revue Up in One.

Pitchford's transition into film songwriting produced some of the most commercially successful music of the early 1980s. Working with composer Michael Gore, he contributed three songs to Alan Parker's 1980 film Fame, including the title track, which became a multi-platinum international hit for Irene Cara. That song earned Gore and Pitchford an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy nomination for Song of the Year in 1981; they also received a Grammy nomination for Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. After signing with Warner Brothers Publishing in 1981, Pitchford began collaborating with composer Tom Snow, producing "Don't Call It Love," first recorded by Kim Carnes on her 1981 album Mistaken Identity and later a country top-ten hit for Dolly Parton in 1985, earning the BMI Country Song of the Year designation. Another Snow and Pitchford composition, "You Should Hear How She Talks About You," reached the top five for Melissa Manchester, winning her the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1983. That same year, Pitchford co-wrote "Don't Fight It" with Kenny Loggins and Steve Perry, a top-twenty hit that received a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Duo. He also wrote the theme song for the weekly television program Solid Gold, which ran from 1980 to 1988, with musical director Michael Miller. For the 1981 film The Legend of the Lone Ranger, he wrote the narrative ballad "The Man In the Mask," spoken and sung by Merle Haggard.

Inspired by a 1980 news story about Elmore City, Oklahoma, where an eighty-year-old ban on dancing had been lifted, Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the 1984 film Footloose and collaborated on its nine-song score with Kenny Loggins, Eric Carmen, Jim Steinman, Sammy Hagar, and others. Directed by Herbert Ross, the film opened at number one and was at the time the highest-grossing February release in film history. The soundtrack album reached number one on the Billboard charts, displacing Michael Jackson's Thriller and holding that position for ten weeks, eventually selling more than seventeen million copies worldwide. Kenny Loggins's title single reached number one on March 31, 1984, and remained there for three weeks. Deniece Williams's "Let's Hear It for the Boy" also hit number one on May 26, 1984, and four additional songs from the soundtrack charted in the top forty: "Almost Paradise" at number seven, co-written with Eric Carmen and performed by Mike Reno and Ann Wilson; "Dancing in the Sheets" at number seventeen, co-written with Bill Wolfer and performed by Shalamar; "I'm Free (Heaven Helps the Man)" at number twenty-two, co-written and performed by Kenny Loggins; and "Holding Out for a Hero" at number thirty-four, co-written with Jim Steinman and performed by Bonnie Tyler. "Footloose" received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Song, and both "Footloose" and "Let's Hear It for the Boy," the latter co-written with Tom Snow, received Academy Award nominations in 1985. Pitchford also earned two Grammy nominations for the project: Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, and Best R&B Song for "Dancing in the Sheets." Paramount Pictures released a remake of Footloose in October 2011, again based on Pitchford's original screenplay and featuring six of his songs; Blake Shelton had a hit with his re-recording of the title track.

Among Pitchford's other notable songwriting credits, he and Marvin Hamlisch wrote Welcome, the Invocation for the Opening Ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics, performed by a choir of one thousand voices at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. He and Tom Snow co-wrote "Did You Hear Thunder?" for George Benson's 1986 album While the City Sleeps. Their collaboration "After All," written for the 1989 film Chances Are and performed by Cher and Peter Cetera, earned Pitchford his fourth Oscar nomination. Gore and Pitchford's "All the Man That I Need" became a worldwide number-one song for Whitney Houston. The soundtrack for the 1988 film Oliver & Company, to which Pitchford and Snow contributed "Streets of Gold" sung by Ruth Pointer, received a Grammy nomination. Pitchford also contributed lyrics to Richard Marx's "That Was Lulu" for Marx's 1989 album Repeat Offender and co-wrote "Through My Eyes" with Marx for Martina McBride for the Bambi II soundtrack. He wrote the screenplay for the 1989 musical film Sing and collaborated on all of its songs.

As a director, Pitchford wrote and directed the short film The Washing Machine Man in 1991 for Chanticleer Films, which was invited to screen out of competition at the Sundance Film Festival. That work led to his directing HBO's Blood Brothers: The Joey DiPaolo Story in 1992, which won the Cable Ace Award for Best Children's Program.

Pitchford's Broadway credits as a writer include the stage musical Footloose, which opened on Broadway on October 22, 1998, ran for over 700 performances, and closed on July 2, 2000. Its original cast recording was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Musical Show Album. The musical Carrie, with lyrics by Pitchford, music by Michael Gore, and book by Lawrence D. Cohen, had previously been produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1988, first in Stratford-upon-Avon and then in a brief Broadway run at the Virginia Theatre. Both Footloose and Carrie earned Pitchford Tony Award nominations in 1999: one for Best Book of a Musical and one for Best Original Musical Score.