Born in the Bronx in 1929, Cy Coleman is considered the youngest and last of the Great
American Songbook composers. Cy began as a child prodigy pianist, performing at
Carnegie & Town Halls at ages 5 & 6. Cy formed a jazz trio and was signed to Capitol
Records in the 1950s. He started writing songs as a young man that would go on to become
standards for Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Tony Bennett, Louis Armstrong, and Peggy Lee
("Witchcraft", "The Best is Yet to Come", "Big Spender", "Hey Look Me Over"). Coleman
became a legendary Broadway composer having scored major hit shows in each decade of
the 1960s (Wildcat, Little Me, Sweet Charity), 1970s (Seesaw, I Love My Wife, On the
Twentieth Century), 1980s (Barnum, City of Angels), and 1990s (Will Rogers Follies, The
Life).
Coleman was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1981 and served on ASCAP's
Board of Directors for 30 years. Cy is a winner of multiple Emmys, Tonys, and Grammy
awards and has an Academy Award Nomination for Best Score for the film version of Sweet
Charity directed by Bob Fosse. Cy kept writing and performing until the day he died at 75
years old in 2004.