Joseph Brooks

Joseph Brooks, born Joseph Kaplan on March 11, 1938, in Manhattan, was an American songwriter, composer, filmmaker, and Broadway writer-director. He grew up in Manhattan and Lawrence, Long Island, and later attended five colleges, including Juilliard, without graduating from any. He claimed to have begun playing piano at age three and writing plays at age five. As a child he developed a stutter that, according to his production partner Robert K. Lifton, vanished when Brooks sang or performed. He was the older brother of Gilbert Kaplan, founder of Institutional Investor magazine.

In the late 1950s, Brooks pursued a singing career under the name Joey Brooks, releasing albums on Canadian-American Records and on Decca under the billing Joey Brooks and the Baroque Folk. He also wrote the song My Ship Is Comin' In, which became a Top Ten UK hit for the Walker Brothers in 1966. When his performing career did not take hold, he moved into advertising, composing jingles for clients including Pepsi and Maxwell House during the 1960s. That work earned him multiple Clio Awards and a People's Choice Award, and at one point he claimed to have 150 commercials running simultaneously on air.

Brooks transitioned into film composition in the 1970s, contributing music to the American release of The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, Marjoe, and The Lords of Flatbush, in which he was also an investor. He wrote Blue Balloon, sung by Robby Benson as the theme for Jeremy, and claimed a significant creative role in that film, though Arthur Barron holds sole writing and directing credit. His most consequential film project was You Light Up My Life, a romantic drama about an aspiring singer starring Didi Conn, which he wrote, produced, directed, and scored on a budget of approximately one million dollars. Despite poor reviews the film was a box-office success, and a cover of its title song by Debby Boone reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for ten consecutive weeks, at the time tied for the longest chart-topping run in the chart's history. The song sold over five million copies and earned Brooks a Grammy Award for Song of the Year, an Academy Award for Best Original Song, a Golden Globe Award, and an ASCAP award.

Brooks followed that film with If Ever I See You Again in 1978, which he co-wrote, produced, directed, scored, and starred in despite having no significant acting experience. The title song became a moderate hit for Roberta Flack, peaking at number 24 on the Hot 100, but the film received poor reviews and failed at the box office. He later directed and scored Invitation to the Wedding in 1983, which featured Ralph Richardson and John Gielgud, and co-produced Eddie and the Cruisers the same year.

Brooks also worked in stage productions. He composed and wrote for the 1989 West End musical adaptation of Metropolis. His Broadway credit was In My Life, which opened in 2005 and which he wrote, directed, and produced. The show centered on a Village Voice personals editor with obsessive-compulsive disorder and a musician with Tourette syndrome brought together by a jingle-singing God. Critics responded negatively, including Ben Brantley of The New York Times, who described it as containing jaw-dropping moments of whimsy run amok. In response, Brooks spent 1.5 million dollars on advertisements contesting the critical consensus. Robert Simonson, writing in Brooks's Playbill obituary, described In My Life as generally regarded as one of the strangest shows ever to have graced a Broadway stage.

In 2008, Brooks suffered a stroke that left him unable to play piano and diminished his capacity to compose. That same year he became the subject of a criminal investigation. In June 2009 he was arrested on charges of raping or sexually assaulting eleven women who had been lured to his Manhattan apartment between 2005 and 2008, allegedly through a Craigslist posting seeking women to audition for film roles. His assistant, Shawni Lucier, was charged with selecting victims, arranging their travel, and reassuring them and their families. Brooks was indicted on June 23, 2009, on 91 counts including rape, sexual abuse, criminal sexual act, and assault. Prosecutors indicated in December 2009 that additional charges were being considered as more accusers came forward. Brooks died by suicide on May 22, 2011, before his trial could proceed. Three days after his death, Lucier pleaded guilty to ten counts of criminal facilitation.

Brooks was married four times. In the late 1970s he married Susan Paul, an English model and actress who appeared in All That Jazz and Invitation to the Wedding; they had two children and divorced in the early 1990s. He later married Christina Bone. He was single at the time of his death.