In Remembrance: Joel Hirschhorn

     Joel Hirschhorn, the two time Academy Award winning songwriter, has passed away on September 18, 2005 in Thousand Oaks, CA. He was 67.

     Born in 1938 in the Bronx, New York, Hirschhorn graduated from the High School for the Performing Arts and attended Hunter College. He performed as a pianist and vocalist in nightclubs before turning to songwriting. His songs, recorded by numerous artists including Elvis Presley, sold more than 90 million records.

     Hirschhorn and songwriting partner Al Kasha won the first of their two Best Song Academy Awards for their song “The Morning After,” written for the disaster movie The Poseidon Adventure (1972). They earned their second Oscar two years later with “We May Never Love Like This Again” from The Towering Inferno (1974). The duo would receive a further pair of Oscar nominations in 1977 for their score for the Disney film Pete’s Dragon and the song “Candle On The Water” from the same movie.

     Hirschhorn met Kasha when Kasha was a producer at Columbia Records. The two also received two Tony Awards nominations – one for their 1981 score for the musical Copperfield and another in 1983 for the additional songs they wrote for a revival of Seven Brides For Seven Brothers. The pair also wrote music for the television series Knots Landing, Three’s A Crowd and Kids Inc..