Cy Coleman

Cy Coleman was a jazz pianist turned Broadway composer whose brassy, swinging tunes powered shows for nearly four decades. Our library includes Sweet Charity and The Will Rogers Follies.

Who was Cy Coleman?

Cy Coleman (1929-2004), born Seymour Kaufman in New York, was a child piano prodigy who became a jazz pianist and nightclub performer. With lyricist Carolyn Leigh he wrote pop standards such as "Witchcraft" and "The Best Is Yet to Come" before turning to Broadway.

He worked with many lyricists: Carolyn Leigh, Dorothy Fields, Michael Stewart, Betty Comden and Adolph Green, David Zippel, and Ira Gasman. His sound is rooted in jazz and big band brass, but he changed style to fit each story, writing comic operetta for On the Twentieth Century, circus music for Barnum, 1940s film noir jazz for City of Angels, and a showy Ziegfeld revue for The Will Rogers Follies.

Cy Coleman's Broadway musicals in order

Wildcat (1960), starring Lucille Ball, introduced "Hey, Look Me Over," and Little Me (1962) paired him with Leigh and book writer Neil Simon. Sweet Charity (1966), with Dorothy Fields, gave Broadway "Big Spender" and "If My Friends Could See Me Now." He reunited with Fields for Seesaw (1973), then wrote I Love My Wife (1977) and Barnum (1980) with Michael Stewart, and On the Twentieth Century (1978) with Comden and Green.

His late career was his most honored. City of Angels (1989), with lyrics by David Zippel and a book by Larry Gelbart, won Best Musical, and The Will Rogers Follies (1991), again with Comden and Green, won it the next year. His last Broadway show was The Life (1997), set among the hustlers of 1980s Times Square.

Legacy, awards, and where to start

Coleman won the Tony Award for Best Original Score three times: for On the Twentieth Century (1978), City of Angels (1990), and The Will Rogers Follies (1991). He is the only composer to win the score award in back-to-back years while those same shows also won Best Musical. He also won Emmy and Grammy Awards, and Sweet Charity became a 1969 film directed by Bob Fosse and starring Shirley MacLaine.

Start with Sweet Charity, whose songs are everywhere, then City of Angels for his jazziest and wittiest score.

Cy Coleman: frequently asked questions

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