Richard Perry, the prolific music producer of hits like Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain,” has died.
Perry, 82, died Tuesday in a Los Angeles hospital after cardiac arrest, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
Born in New York, Perry was a keen musician and a member of a doo-wop group in high school. But after college he turned his attention to record producing and went on to be one of the most successful producers of all time.
He has worked with mainstream artists from Barbra Streisand and Rod Stewart to Fats Domino and Leo Sayer.
Perry was also on hand to record the first time the Beatles worked together after their split for a song on drummer Ringo Starr’s debut solo album, Sentimental Journey.
The producer worked with Stewart on his Great American Songbook series and in 2015 received a Grammys Trustee Award.
Well-connected to celebrities and high-profile musicians, Perry dated Elizabeth Taylor, Jane Fonda, and married actress Rebecca Broussard.
Perry’s Donna Kastner broke the news of his death to the media and described him as a “fatherArray. “
“He maximized his time here,” she told the AP. “He’s generous, funny, gentle and made the world a better place. The world is a little less sweet without him here. But he’s a little sweet in heaven. “
Streisand worked extensively with Perry throughout her career and praised him in her memoir, My Name Is Barbra.
“I liked Richard from the moment we met. He’s tall and slim, with a mop of curly black hair and a big smile,” she wrote. “When we met, he came loaded with songs and we listened to them together. Any doubts I might have felt about our collaboration temporarily disappeared and I thought, ‘It might as well just be fun and musically liberating. ‘”
She wrote of her musical abilities, “Richard had a knack for matching the right song to the right artist. »
Perry used her memoir to verify a secret kept for decades by revealing exactly which ex-boyfriend Simon was singing a song about in “You’re So Vain. “
“I’m going to take this opportunity to give my insider opinion,” he wrote in his 2021 memoir, Cloud Nine. “The user the song is based on is a combination of several men Carly dated in the ’60s and early ’70s, but most commonly my smart friend, Warren Beatty. “
Shannon Power is a Greek-Australian reporter, but now calls London home. They have worked as across three continents in print, newspapers and broadcast, specializing in entertainment, politics, LGBTQ+ and health reporting. Shannon has covered high profile celebrity trials along with industry analysis of all the big trends in media, pop culture and the entertainment business generally. Shannon stories have featured on the cover of the Newsweek magazine and has been published in publications such as, The Guardian, Monocle, The Independent, SBS, ABC, Metro and The Sun. You can get in touch with Shannon by email at [email protected] and on X @shannonjpower. Languages: English, Greek, Spanish.