Jerry Herman, a Tony Award-winning composer whose contributions to the Broadway stage included such enduring hits as Hello, Dolly!, Mame and La Cage aux Folles, the first major Broadway musical that overtly addressed gay relationships, died Thursday at a hospital in Miami Beach, Fla. He was 88.
Herman had a pulmonary ailment, said his goddaughter, Jane Dorian. He lived in Miami with his partner, real-estate broker Terry Marler.
Herman was a prolific composer whose songs -- including "We Need a Little Christmas," "Before the Parade Passes By" and the title tune "Hello, Dolly!" -- became celebratory anthems and sometimes pop hits.
An unabashedly old-fashioned show-tune songwriter in the tradition of Irving Berlin or Rodgers and Hammerstein, Herman valued a good melody, a memorable chorus and what he called "the simple, hummable show tune." Several of his works are considered enduring classics of the musical theater.
He created 10 Broadway shows during his career and won two Tony Awards for his scores of Hello, Dolly! in 1964 and La Cage aux Folles two decades later. In 2009, he received a Tony for lifetime achievement, followed a year later by the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington.
The original production of Hello, Dolly! ran for 2,844 performances, a Broadway record at the time, and Herman's musicals are often performed on stages throughout the world and in revival on Broadway.
Herman also had a direct, simple sense of melody and his lyrics had a natural, unforced quality. He told The Associated Press in 1995 that over the years, "critics have sort of tossed me off as the popular and not the cerebral writer, and that was fine with me. That was exactly what I aimed at."
On Friday, playwright Paul Rudnick praised Herman for providing "such joy." And director and choreographer Matthew Bourne said Herman's "feel-good shows full of melody and joy will live forever." Bernadette Peters, Elaine Paige and Carolee Carmello also mourned his passing, with Donna Murphy thanking the composer for "countless moments of explosive joy, deep poignancy, profound inspiration, humor and heartbreak."
Herman was born in New York in 1931 and raised in Jersey City, N.J. His parents ran a children's summer camp in the Catskills and he taught himself the piano. He noted that when he was born, his mother had a view of Broadway's Winter Garden Theatre marquee from her hospital bed.
Herman dated his intention to write musicals to the time his parents took him to Annie Get Your Gun and he went home and played five of Irving Berlin's songs on the piano.
A Section on 12/28/2019