Charles Strouse, Composer of Annie, Bye Bye Birdie, Dies at 96

Broadway composer Charles Strouse—one of the writers of Bye Bye Birdie, Applause, and Annie—has died at the age of 96.

Strouse was born on June 7, 1928, in New York City, the son of Ethel (Newman) and Ira Strouse. After graduating from the Eastman School of Music in 1947, he received two scholarships to Tanglewood, where he studied under composer Aaron Copland. Subsequently, Copland arranged for Strouse to get a scholarship with legendary teacher, Nadia Boulanger, in Paris.

He met songwriting partner, lyricist Lee Adams, at a party in 1949, and the duo began a longtime collaboration starting with writing songs for summer resorts in the Adirondacks. Strouse and Adams contributed material to numerous off-Broadway musical revues, including Catch a Star, Shoestring Revue, The Littlest Revue, and Kaleidoscope, and wrote specialty material for Kaye Ballard, Carol Burnett, Jane Morgan and Dick Shawn.

In 1958, Strouse and lyricist Fred Tobias wrote the chart-topping pop song “Born Too Late” (recorded by the Poni-Tails), and it was in that same year that Strouse and Adams had their Broadway breakthrough. They were hired by producer Edward Padula to write a satirical musical about rock and roll and teen idol culture. The show, Bye Bye Birdie, became their first Tony Award-winning hit. The production starred Chita Rivera and Dick Van Dyke and won four 1961 Tony Awards including Best Musical, earning Strouse the first of his three Tony Awards.

The show introduced the world to such songs as “Put On a Happy Face,” and “A Lot of Livin’ to Do.” A 1962 movie version, starring Ann-Margret, was one of the top-grossing films of the year, and featured Margret’s now iconic performance of the film’s newly added title song, “Bye Bye Birdie.” Strouse would later win a 1996 Emmy Award for the new song, “Let’s Settle Down,” written with Adams and added for the musical’s 1995 TV adaptation, starring Jason Alexander and Vanessa Williams.

Additional collaborations with Adams include the Mel Brooks musical All American (1962) starring Ray Bolger. Though the show was not a commercial success, it featured what would become the popular American standard “Once Upon a Time” (recorded by Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, and many others). Golden Boy (1963), a musical adaptation of the play by Clifford Odets starred Sammy Davis Jr., garnered Strouse his second Tony Award nomination. “It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane… It’s Superman!” (1965, written by David Newman & Robert Benton) gave audiences another popular Strouse & Adams song, “You’ve Got Possibilities” (first recorded by Linda Lavin). And in 1970, when the team wrote the score for Applause (based on the film All About Eve and Mary Orr’s The Wisdom of Eve and starring Lauren Bacall), Strouse would win his second Tony Award.

Strouse’s biggest Broadway success was with collaborators Martin Charnin and Thomas Meehan on Annie (1977), based on the comic strip, “Little Orphan Annie,” by Harold Gray. The Depression-era musical about a plucky red-headed orphan girl who wins the heart of billionaire Oliver Warbucks, was one of Broadway’s biggest hits of the 1970s, winning seven Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and garnering Strouse his third Tony Award and a Grammy Award for Best Cast Show Album. Strouse’s score included “Tomorrow,” “It’s the Hard–Knock Life,” “You’re Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile,” and “I Don’t Need Anything But You.” Annie ran for over 2,300 performances on Broadway, where it has been revived twice and has inspired hundreds of worldwide productions. It has also been adapted for two film and two television productions.

Strouse was passionate about collaboration and would earn Tony Award nominations for his scores with lyricists: David Rogers, Charlie & Algernon (1980), based on the novel Flowers for Algernon, Steven Schwartz, for Rags (1986), with book writer Joseph Stein starring Teresa Stratas, and Nick and Nora (1991), a musical based on Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man characters, written with Richard Maltby, Jr.

Strouse’s film scores include Bonnie and Clyde (1967) starring Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway, The Night They Raided Minsky’s (1968), There Was a Crooked Man (1970), with Henry Fonda and Kirk Douglas, Sidney Lumet’s Just Tell Me What You Want, and the animated feature All Dogs Go To Heaven (1989).

He is best known to television audiences for his song “Those Were the Days,” written with Adams. One of the most popular television themes of all time, the song was performed at an upright piano by actors Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker and Jean Stapleton as Edith Bunker, where it was introduced over 200 episodes of Norman Lear’s groundbreaking series, “All in the Family.”

In addition to his awards, Strouse was the recipient of several honorary doctorates. He was a longtime member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, inducted in 1985, and the Theatre Hall of Fame.

In 1977, Strouse founded the ASCAP Musical Theatre Workshop, through which many young composers and lyricists honed their craft and developed their work. Strouse authored the autobiography Put on a Happy Face: A Broadway Memoir, published by Union Square Press in July 2008.

Strouse is survived by his children, Benjamin Strouse, Nicholas Strouse, Victoria Strouse, and William Strouse, and his eight grandchildren, Sam and Arthur Strouse, Navah Strouse, Vivian, Weston and Ever Brush, and Owen and Theodore Strouse. He was predeceased by his wife, choreographer Barbara Siman, to whom he was married from 1962 until her death in 2023.