Library of Congress Acquires Papers of Academy Award-Winning Songwriter Leslie Bricusse
The Library of Congress has acquired the papers of songwriter Leslie Bricusse, best known for writing scores for the stage and film musicals, “Doctor Dolittle” (1967), with its Oscar-winning “Talk to the Animals;” collaborating with Anthony Newley on “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” (1971) for a score that included the No. 1 hit song, “The Candy Man” and the much-beloved “Pure Imagination;” and the 1970 musical“Scrooge,” with its irresistible “Thank You Very Much.”
The collection came to the Library as a generous gift from Bricusse’s widow, actress Yvonne “Evie” Romain Bricusse, an actress best-remembered for co-starring with Elvis Presley in the film “Double Trouble” (1967).
Some of Bricusse’s hit songs include, “A Wonderful Day Like Today,” “Look at That Face,” “The Joker,” “Nothing Can Stop Me Now!” “Who Can I Turn To?” and what would become a signature song for Nina Simone, “Feeling Good.”
“There are a few songwriters who have an extraordinary knack for writing songs that, even on first hearing, imbed themselves in your mind, become impossible to forget, and seem so inevitable that it is hard to imagine they did not always exist,” said Library of Congress Music Curator Mark Eden Horowitz. “Leslie Bricusse is one of those songwriters.”
Bricusse was born on the outskirts of London in 1931 and burst onto the scene in 1961 with his first collaboration with Newley on their show “Stop the World — I Want to Get Off.” More collaborations with Newley would follow.
Bricusse went from London and Broadway to Hollywood. In 1967 his first film musical was released — “Doctor Dolittle,” with screenplay, music and lyrics all by Bricusse and featuring the Oscar-winning song “Talk to the Animals.” As a side gig, he also became the go-to guy to write the lyrics for movie theme songs. This included two James Bond themes, “Goldfinger” and “You Only Live Twice” (with John Barry), as well as “Two for the Road” (with Henry Mancini), and “Can You Read My Mind” (Love theme for “Superman”) with John Williams.
This collection includes recordings, scripts, photographs, sheet music and songbooks, and — the heart of the collection — approximately 225 notebooks. These notebooks are unlike anything Library curators have seen in another collection in their combination of detail and comprehensiveness. It appears Bricusse lived his professional life in them.The notebooks include lyric sketches, music sketches, drafts of scripts, ideas for casting and directors, ideas for shows, notes from meetings, questions he poses to himself and the answers he gives.
The items are all handwritten in beautiful calligraphy, pencil and variously colored pens. Most pages are not only numbered and dated but also include a note on where he was geographically at the time. A single lyric sketch may run 30 pages or more, with music sketches in the margins using a unique system for notating melodies.
As the Bricusse Collection makes clear, as a creator he was a master at keeping multiple plates in the air. It was not unusual for him to be working on a dozen projects at a time. Not everything reached fruition, but much did, including shows that didn’t come to Broadway, but did make it to the West End, including “Sherlock Holmes: The Musical,” “Beyond the Rainbow” and “Kings and Clowns.” Among his better-known later works were songs with John Williams for the movies “Home Alone” and “Hook.” With Henry Mancini, he wrote the songs for the Blake Edwards film, “Victor/Victoria,” starring Julie Andrews, and later expanded them for Broadway. And with composer Frank Wildhorn, he wrote the songs for “Jekyll & Hyde,” including the stirring anthem “This is the Moment.”
The collection also compliments existing collections in the Music Division, particularly the David Merrick Collection — Merrick produced Bricusse’s shows: “Stop the World…,” “Pickwick” and “The Roar of the Greasepaint…” — and the Henry Mancini Collection —with whom Bricusse collaborated on several shows and dozens of songs. The collectionbuilds on the Library’s extraordinary riches when it comes to the papers of composers and lyricists for Broadway and film musicals, including the papers of Irving Berlin, George and Ira Gershwin, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe, Leonard Bernstein, Jonathan Larson, Howard Ashman and Jeanine Tesori. Researchers can access the Leslie Bricusse Collection in the Performing Arts Reading Room.
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Media Contact: Elaina Finkelstein, efinkelstein@loc.gov
Public Contact: Mark Horowitz, mhor@loc.gov
PR 24-015
2-13-2024
ISSN 0731-3527