Partner Tory Damon, buried together
Queer Places:
Abraham Lincoln High School, 2800 Ocean Pkwy, Brooklyn, NY 11235, Stati Uniti
Forest Lawn Memorial-Parks & Mortuaries, 6300 Forest Lawn Dr, Los Angeles, CA 90068, Stati Uniti
Howard Greenfield (March 15, 1936 – March 4, 1986) was an American
lyricist and songwriter, who for several years in the 1960s worked out of the
famous
Brill Building. He is best known for his successful songwriting
collaborations, including one with
Neil
Sedaka from the late 1950s to the mid-1970s, and a near-simultaneous (and
equally successful) songwriting partnership with
Jack Keller throughout most of the 1960s.
Greenfield co-wrote four songs that reached #1 on the US Billboard charts: "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do", as recorded by Sedaka; "Everybody's Somebody's Fool" and "Breakin' in a Brand New Broken Heart", both as recorded by Connie Francis, and "Love Will Keep Us Together", as recorded by Captain & Tennille. He also co-wrote numerous other top 10 hits for Sedaka (including "Oh! Carol", "Stairway to Heaven", "Calendar Girl", "Little Devil", "Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen", and "Next Door to an Angel"); Francis (including the "Theme to Where The Boys Are" and "My Heart Has a Mind of Its Own"); the Everly Brothers ("Crying in the Rain"); Jimmy Clanton ("Venus in Blue Jeans") and the Shirelles ("Foolish Little Girl"). Greenfield also co-wrote the theme songs to numerous 1960s TV series, including Gidget, Bewitched, The Flying Nun and Hazel.
In 2005, "Is This The Way To Amarillo", a song Greenfield had written with Sedaka in the early 1970s, reached #1 on the UK charts in the original 1971 version by Tony Christie. The video featured an all-star celebrity line-up lip-synching the track, and the proceeds went to charity. The record stayed at #1 for 7 weeks, and became the UK's best-selling record of the millennium to that time.
Greenfield was openly gay,[14] even though during the era in which he lived it was unusual to be open about this. Being openly gay was, however, not entirely uncommon amongst people in the entertainment industry who worked outside the public eye. His companion from the early 1960s to his death was cabaret singer Tory Damon (September 29, 1939 - March 30, 1986); the two lived together in an apartment on East 63rd Street in Manhattan before moving to California in 1966.[15]
Greenfield died in Los Angeles in 1986 from complications from AIDS, eleven days before his 50th birthday. He was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. Damon died from AIDS complications just a few days later and is buried next to Greenfield.[16]
In 1991, Greenfield was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
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