The Tony and Grammy award-winning lyricist Sheldon Harnick, who with the composer Jerry Bock made up one of the premier musical-theater songwriting duos of the 1950s and 1960s with shows such as Fiddler on the Roof, Fiorello! and The Apple Tree, has died. He was 99.
Harnick died in his sleep on Friday in New York City of natural causes, said Sean Katz, Harnick’s publicist.
Bock and Harnick first hit success for the music and lyrics to Fiorello!, which earned them each Tonys and a rare Pulitzer prize in 1960. In addition, Harnick was nominated for Tonys in 1967 for The Apple Tree, in 1971 for The Rothschild and in 1994 for Cyrano – The Musical.
Bock and Harnick were first introduced at a restaurant by the actor Jack Cassidy after the opening-night performance of Shangri-La, a musical in which Harnick had helped with the lyrics. The first Harnick-Bock musical was The Body Beautiful in 1958.
They would form one of the most influential partnerships in Broadway history. The producers Robert E Griffith and Hal Prince had liked the songs from The Body Beautiful, and they contracted Bock and Harnick to write the score for their next production, Fiorello!, a musical about the reformist mayor of New York City.
Bock and Harnick then collaborated on Tenderloin in 1960 and She Loves Me three years later. Neither was a hit – although She Loves Me won a Grammy for best score from a cast album – but their next one was a monster that continues to be performed worldwide: Fiddler on the Roof. It earned two Tony awards in 1965.
Based on stories by Sholem Aleichem that were adapted into a libretto by Stein, it dealt with the experience of eastern European Orthodox Jews in the Russian village of Anatevka in the year 1905. It starred Zero Mostel as Teyve, had an almost eight-year run and offered the world songs like Sunrise, Sunset, If I Were a Rich Man and Matchmaker, Matchmaker. The most recent Broadway revival starred Danny Burstein as Tevye and earned a best revival Tony nomination.
Bock and Harnick next wrote the book as well as the score for The Apple Tree, in 1966, and the score for The Rothschilds, with a book by Sherman Yellen, in 1970. It was the last collaboration between the two.
Harnick went on to collaborate with Michel Legrand on The Umbrellas of Cherbourg in 1979 and a musical of A Christmas Carol in 1981; Mary Rodgers on a version of Pinocchio in 1973; Arnold Black on a musical of The Phantom Tollbooth; and Richard Rodgers on the score to Rex in 1976, a Broadway musical about Henry VIII.
His work for television and film ranged from songs for the HBO animated film The Tale of Peter Rabbit in 1991 with music by Stephen Lawrence, to lyrics for the opening number of the 1988 Academy Awards telecast. He wrote the theme songs for two films, both with music by Cy Coleman: The Heartbreak Kid in 1972 and Blame it On Rio in 1984.
He and his wife, the artist Margery Gray Harnick, had two children, Beth and Matthew, and two grandchildren. Harnick had an earlier marriage to actress Elaine May. He was a longtime member of the Dramatists Guild and Songwriters Guild.