Award-winning lyricist Marilyn Bergman died Saturday morning at her home in Los Angeles, according to her daughter Julie Bergman. She was 93.
She died of respiratory failure not related to Covid-19, according to a representative, Jason Lee. Her husband was at her bedside when she died.
Along with her husband and collaborator Alan, Bergman was nominated for 16 Academy Awards over the course of her career and won three, including for the song “The Way We Were” from the 1973 film that shared its name and starred Barbra Streisand. The song — with music by composer Marvin Hamlisch — also won two Grammys.
“She has been declining for the last couple of years, and in the last several weeks, it was clear that she was getting ready to leave, and she died very peacefully without any pain or struggle,” Julie Bergman, her daughter revealed.
“My father and I were with her, and it was beautiful, and she looked beautiful, and it was very peaceful.”
Marilyn Bergman had “some pneumonia which leads to respiratory failure in patients like this,” her daughter said.
The Bergmans won two other Oscars for their song “Windmills of Your Mind” in 1968’s “The Thomas Crown Affair” and for the score of 1983’s “Yentl,” which was also directed by and starred Streisand. The couple also won four Emmys and two Golden Globe Awards, among others.
The husband and wife “always” worked together, Bergman said in a 1996 workshop for the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). “We’re thinking separately when we’re not together,” she said, “so we’ll bring something different into the room when we get together to work.”
Bergman became the first woman elected to ASCAP’s Board of Directors in 1985, per ASCAP, and went on to be elected President and Chairman of the Board in 1994.
In 1980, Bergman and her husband were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
