Bruce Howard Sussman (born July 12, 1949) is an American lyricist, and

librettist A libretto (Italian for "booklet") is the text used in, or intended for, an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata or musical. The term ''libretto'' is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major litu ...

. Though he has collaborated with numerous composers, he is probably best known for his work with his long-time collaborator,

Barry Manilow Barry Manilow (born Barry Alan Pincus; June 17, 1943) is an American singer and songwriter with a career that spans seven decades. His hit recordings include "Could It Be Magic", " Somewhere Down the Road", " Mandy", "I Write the Songs", " Can ...

. Together they have written over two hundred songs for numerous recording artists, films,

stage musical Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movement ...

s and television programs.

Life and career

Sussman was born in

Jackson Heights, Queens Jackson Heights is a neighborhood in the northwestern portion of the borough of Queens in New York City. Jackson Heights is neighbored by North Corona to the east, Elmhurst to the south, Woodside to the west, northern Astoria ( Ditmars-Steinw ...

, New York and was raised on

Long Island Long Island is a densely populated island in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, part of the New York metropolitan area. With over 8 million people, Long Island is the most populous island in the United Sta ...

, where he graduated from

Sanford H. Calhoun High School Sanford H. Calhoun High School is a public high school located in Merrick, New York. Established in 1958, Calhoun is one of three high schools in the Bellmore–Merrick Central High School District, and acts as a magnet school for several pro ...

Merrick, New York Merrick is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) in the Town of Hempstead in Nassau County, on the South Shore of Long Island, in New York, United States. , the population was 20,130. Geography According to the United States Census Bure ...

. He then graduated from

Franklin and Marshall College Franklin & Marshall College (F&M) is a private liberal arts college in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. It employs 175 full-time faculty members and has a student body of approximately 2,400 full-time students. It was founded upon the merger of Frankli ...

Lancaster, Pennsylvania Lancaster, ( ; pdc, Lengeschder) is a city in and the county seat of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. It is one of the oldest inland cities in the United States. With a population at the 2020 census of 58,039, it ranks 11th in population amon ...

. Upon his return to New York, he was accepted into the

BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) is a performance rights organization in the United States. It collects blanket license fees from businesses that use music, entitling those businesses to play or sync any songs from BMI's repertoire of over 20.6 milli ...

. During this period he met Barry Manilow, and they began writing

jingles A jingle is a short song or tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. Jingles are a form of sound branding. A jingle contains one or more hooks and meaning that explicitly promote the product or service being advertised, usually t ...

and songs together. Among their first successes was ''

Copacabana (At the Copa) "Copacabana", also known as "Copacabana (At the Copa)", is a song recorded by Barry Manilow. Written by Manilow, Jack Feldman, and Bruce Sussman, it was released in 1978 as the third and final single from Manilow's fifth studio album, '' Even N ...

'' which became Sussman's first

gold record Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile meta ...

as well as a

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...

-winning, international hit. It would later become the source material for a made-for-television film musical of the same title, a one-act casino show, and then a two-act stage musical for which he co-authored the book and lyrics with Manilow and Jack Feldman. The show ran for two years at the

Prince of Wales Theatre The Prince of Wales Theatre is a West End theatre in Coventry Street, near Leicester Square in London. It was established in 1884 and rebuilt in 1937, and extensively refurbished in 2004 by Sir Cameron Mackintosh, its current owner. The theatre ...

on London's West End before extensive tours of Britain and the United States. Also for the stage, he co-authored with Feldman the song scores for

Ted Tally Ted Tally (born April 9, 1952) is an American playwright and screenwriter. He adapted the Thomas Harris novel '' The Silence of the Lambs'' into the film of the same name, for which he received the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, the ...

’s ''‘’Coming Attractions’’''—which starred

Christine Baranski Christine Jane Baranski (born May 2, 1952) is an American actress. She is a 15-time Primetime Emmy Award nominee, winning once in 1995 for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as Maryann Thorpe in the sitcom ''Cybill'' ...

Jonathan Hadary Jonathan Hadary (born October 11, 1948) is an American actor. Early life and education Born in Chicago, Illinois and raised in Bethesda, Maryland, Hadary arrived at Tufts University already an accomplished actor. He was cast in many shows at ...

and

Griffin Dunne Thomas Griffin Dunne (; born June 8, 1955) is an American actor, film producer, and film director. Dunne studied acting at The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City. He is known for portraying Jack Goodman in '' An Amer ...

-- and

Wendy Wasserstein Wendy Wasserstein (October 18, 1950 – January 30, 2006) was an American playwright. She was an Andrew Dickson White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. She received the Tony Award for Best Play and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1989 fo ...

’s first musical, ''‘’Miami’’''—which starred

Phyllis Newman Phyllis Newman (March 19, 1933 – September 15, 2019) was an American actress and singer. She won the 1962 Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Musical for her role as Martha Vail in the musical ''Subways Are for Sleeping'' on Broadway, ...

Marcia Lewis Marcia Lewis (August 18, 1938 – December 21, 2010) was an American character actor, character actress and singer. She was nominated twice for the Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Musical (''Chicago (musical), Chicago'' and ''Grease (mu ...

Fisher Stevens Fisher Stevens (born Steven Fisher; November 27, 1963) is an American actor, director, producer and writer. As an actor, he is best known for his portrayals of Ben in ''Short Circuit'' and ''Short Circuit 2'', Chuck Fishman on the 1990s televis ...

, and

Jane Krakowski Jane Krakowski (; ; born October 11, 1968) is an American actress, comedienne, and singer. She is best known for her starring role as Jenna Maroney in the NBC satirical comedy series ''30 Rock'' (2006–2013, 2020), for which she received four ...

. Both shows were produced by

André Bishop André Bishop (born November 9, 1948) is an American theatrical producer, and Artistic Director and Producing Artistic Director, of Lincoln Center Theater. He has produced over 80 Broadway plays and musicals and has won numerous Tony Awards. Ea ...

Playwrights Horizons Playwrights Horizons is a not-for-profit Off-Broadway theater located in New York City dedicated to the support and development of contemporary American playwrights, composers, and lyricists, and to the production of their new work. Under the ...

off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...

. He also contributed a song to Howard Crabtree's off-Broadway and London productions of '' Whoop-Dee-Doo!'' Most recently, he is the author of the book and lyrics for ''’’Harmony,’’'' a musical about The

Comedian Harmonists The Comedian Harmonists were an internationally famous, all-male German close harmony ensemble that performed between 1928 and 1934 as one of the most successful musical groups in Europe before World War II. The group consisted of Harry Frommerm ...

. The show had developmental productions at the

La Jolla Playhouse La Jolla Playhouse is a not-for-profit, professional theatre on the campus of the University of California, San Diego. History La Jolla Playhouse was founded in 1947 by Gregory Peck, Dorothy McGuire, and Mel Ferrer. In 1983, it was revived under ...

, the

Alliance Theatre The Alliance Theatre is a theater company in Atlanta, Georgia, based at the Alliance Theatre, part of the Robert W. Woodruff Arts Center, and is the winner of the 2007 Regional Theatre Tony Award. The company, originally the Atlanta Municipal T ...

, and the

Ahmanson Theatre The Ahmanson Theatre is one of the four main venues that compose the Los Angeles Music Center. History The theatre was built as a result of a donation from Howard F. Ahmanson Sr, the founder of H.F. Ahmanson & Co., an insurance and savings an ...

. It is scheduled to make its New York debut, in a production directed by

Warren Carlyle Warren Carlyle is a British director and choreographer who was born in Norwich, Norfolk, England. He received Drama Desk Award nominations for Outstanding Choreography and Outstanding Director of a Musical for the 2009 revival of '' Finian's Rai ...

, at the National Yiddish Theatre

Folksbiene The National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, commonly known as NYTF, is a professional theater company in New York City which produces both Yiddish plays and plays translated into Yiddish, in a theater equipped with simultaneous superscript translati ...

in March 2022. With Manilow he also wrote song scores for the animated films ''

Thumbelina Thumbelina (; da, Tommelise) is a literary fairy tale written by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen first published by C. A. Reitzel on 16 December 1835 in Copenhagen, Denmark, with "The Naughty Boy" and "The Travelling Companion" in t ...

'' and ''

The Pebble and the Penguin ''The Pebble and the Penguin'' is a 1995 Irish-American independent animated film directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman. The film stars the voices of Martin Short, Jim Belushi, Tim Curry, and Annie Golden. Based on the true life mating rituals of ...

'', as well as a song for

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

’s ''

Oliver and Company ''Oliver & Company'' is a 1988 American animated musical adventure film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and released on November 18, 1988, by Walt Disney Pictures. The 27th Disney animated feature film, it is loosely based on the Charl ...

''.

Personal life

In 1994, Sussman met entertainment columnist,

Rob Shuter Robert James Shuter (aka "Naughty But Nice Rob"), born on July 16, 1973, in Birmingham, United Kingdom, is a journalist, gossip columnist, magazine editor, talk-show host, and author. Overview In 2007, Shuter became the Executive Editor of th ...

, in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

, Scotland. They were married on October 29, 2011.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sussman, Bruce American lyricists Living people American LGBT songwriters 1949 births American musical theatre librettists American musical theatre lyricists 21st-century LGBT people Broadway composers and lyricists Songwriters from New York (state)