Dean Pitchford

Dean Pitchford (born July 29, 1951) is an American songwriter, screenwriter, director, actor, and novelist.

His work has earned him an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for three additional Oscars, two more Golden Globes, eight Grammy Awards, and two Tony Awards.

Pitchford was born in Honolulu, where he attended Catholic schools, graduating in 1968 from Saint Louis High School.

He began his performance career as an actor and a singer with the Honolulu Community Theatre (now Diamond Head Theatre), the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra and the Honolulu Theatre for Youth, among others.

While studying at Yale University, Pitchford performed with numerous campus drama groups, but his focus gradually turned off-campus, where he worked with the Wooster Square Revival, an experimental theatre company that offered acting opportunities to recovering addicts and alcoholics.

In 1969, Pitchford returned to Honolulu as an assistant to authors Faye Hammel and Sylvan Levey in updating the popular guidebook Hawai'i on $5 and $10 A Day, and researching Trans World Airlines' Budget Guide to Hawai'i, the first of a series of guidebooks that would eventually turn into the popular series TWA Getaway Guides.

In 1971, Pitchford was cast in the off-Broadway musical Godspell in New York City.

He also starred in Godspell at Ford's Theatre.

Bob Fosse cast Pitchford as Pippin in the Broadway show of the same name in 1975.

While in Pippin, Pitchford acted, sang, and danced in over 100 commercials for such products as Dr Pepper, McDonald's, Lay's, and M&M's.

As a result of performing his early songwriting efforts in cabarets around Manhattan, he was invited to write with such composers as Stephen Schwartz, Alan Menken and Rupert Holmes.

In 1979, he collaborated with recording artist and cabaret performer Peter Allen to write new songs for Allen's one-man Broadway revue, Up in One.

With composer Michael Gore, Pitchford collaborated on three songs for Alan Parker's 1980 motion picture Fame; these were "Red Light," a disco hit for singer Linda Clifford; the symphonic/rock finale "I Sing the Body Electric;" and the title song "Fame," which became a multi-platinum, international best seller for Irene Cara.

With musical director Michael Miller, he wrote the theme song for the weekly dance-music show Solid Gold (1980–88).

Inspired by a 1980 news story about Elmore City, Oklahoma, a town which had finally lifted an 80-year-old ban on dancing, Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984).

He collaborated on the nine-song score with Kenny Loggins, Eric Carmen, Jim Steinman, Sammy Hagar and others.

The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at No. 1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history.

When the soundtrack album hit No. 1 on the Billboard album charts, it deposed Michael Jackson's Thriller and held that position for 10 weeks.

It went on top charts all over the world, eventually selling more than 17 million albums.

That song earned Gore and Pitchford an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy nomination for Song of the Year (1981).

They also received a Grammy nomination for Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.

When Pitchford was signed by Warner Brothers Publishing (1981) he began collaborating with a variety of songwriters.

Among the first songs whose lyrics he wrote in collaboration with composer Tom Snow was "Don't Call It Love," which was first recorded by Kim Carnes on her 1981 album Mistaken Identity; the selection charted in the U.S. country singles top-ten for Dolly Parton in 1985 and was named the BMI Country Song of the Year.

For the ill-fated 1981 movie The Legend of the Lone Ranger, Pitchford wrote a narrative ballad, "The Man In the Mask."

This was spoken (throughout the movie) and sung (at its beginning and end) by Merle Haggard.

"You Should Hear How She Talks About You," another Snow/Pitchford composition, was a Top 5 hit for Melissa Manchester for which she won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1983.

That same year, Pitchford, Kenny Loggins and Steve Perry wrote and composed "Don't Fight It," a Top 20 hit that was Grammy-nominated in the Best Pop Vocal Duo category.

Kenny Loggins's single of the title song hit No. 1 on March 31, 1984, and stayed there for three weeks.

Five weeks later (May 26, 1984) Deniece Williams's "Let's Hear It for the Boy" went to No. 1, as well.

Four more songs from the soundtrack charted in the Top 40; "Almost Paradise," which reached No. 7, was co-written with Eric Carmen, and was performed by Mike Reno of Loverboy and Ann Wilson of Heart; "Dancing in the Sheets" which reached No. 17, was co-written with Bill Wolfer, and was performed by Shalamar; "I'm Free (Heaven Helps the Man)," which reached No. 22 and, like the film's title track, was co-written with, and performed by, Kenny Loggins; and "Holding Out for a Hero," which reached No. 34, was co-written with Jim Steinman, and was performed by Bonnie Tyler.

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.

"Footloose" was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Song; and "Footloose" and "Let's Hear It for the Boy" (co-written with Tom Snow) both received Academy Award nominations (1985).

Pitchford received two Grammy nominations: Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, and Best R&B Song "Dancing in the Sheets."

He co-wrote the song "Did You Hear Thunder?," with Tom Snow, for the George Benson album While the City Sleeps... (1986).

Next Pitchford wrote the screenplay of, and collaborated on the authorship and composition of all the songs for, the 1989 musical film Sing.

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 No. 1 song for Whitney Houston.

Pitchford wrote and directed a short film, The Washing Machine Man (1991), for Chanticleer Films; it was invited to be shown out-of-competition at the Sundance Film Festival.

That led to Pitchford being hired as director of HBO's Blood Brothers: The Joey DiPaolo Story (1992), which won that year's Cable Ace Award for Best Children's Program.

Paramount Pictures's remake of Footloose, which was again based on Pitchford's original screenplay and featured six of his songs, was released in October 2011.

Blake Shelton had a hit with his re-recording of the title song.