Dean Pitchford - Later Songwriting

Later Songwriting

With Marvin Hamlisch, Pitchford wrote Welcome, the Invocation for the Opening Ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics; it was performed by a choir of 1,000 voices in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

For the motion picture Chances Are (1989), Pitchford and Tom Snow composed "After All", an international hit for Cher and Peter Cetera which garnered Pitchford his fourth Oscar nomination; and two years later Pitchford's and Gore’s "All the Man That I Need" was a worldwide #1 for Whitney Houston.

Pitchford contributed lyrics to Richard Marx's song "That Was Lulu" for Marx's 1989 album Repeat Offender, with whom he also wrote "Through My Eyes" for Martina McBride for the Bambi II soundtrack.

Pitchford worked for many years on a stage adaptation of Footloose, which finally opened on Broadway on October 22, 1998. The original cast recording was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Musical Show Album. After over 700 performances, the show closed on July 2, 2000. The musical continues to be performed all over the U.S. and around the world.

Based on Stephen King's first novel, the stage musical of "Carrie," with Pitchford's lyrics (music by Michael Gore, book by Lawrence D. Cohen), was presented by MCC Theatre in New York City as the final offering in their 2011-12 season. A previous production of that show was presented in 1988 by the Royal Shakespeare Company, first in Stratford Upon Avon in England, and then in a famously short run on Broadway at the Virginia Theatre. The 2012 MCC production was nominated for Best Revival by numerous critics' groups, including the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle. The original cast album was recorded by Sh-K-Boom/Ghostlight Records, and the Rodgers & Hammerstein Organization/Imagem Music snapped up the worldwide performance rights to the property.

Australian film star Hugh Jackman won Broadway’s Tony Award for his portrayal of songwriter Peter Allen in The Boy from Oz (2003), in which he sang songs ("Not the Boy Next Door" and "Once Before I Go") written more than two decades earlier by Allen and Pitchford. Jackman repeated his performances of those songs when he returned to New York City in his one-man concert, "Hugh Jackman - Back on Broadway" (2011).

Pitchford contributed songs to The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003); Shrek 2 (2004); Ice Princess (2005); and Bambi II (2006).