Herbert Kretzmer
Herbert Kretzmer, OBE ( born October 5, 1925 in Kroonstad, Orange Free State ) is a South African lyricist and songwriter, who won a Tony and a Grammy Award. In 2013 he was nominated for an Oscar.
Life
Kretzmers parents had fled the czarist Russian - Jewish pogroms in South Africa and operated a small furniture store. Kretzmer attended high school in Kroonstad and later studied at Rhodes University in Grahamstown. He was married from 1961 to 1973 with Elisabeth Margaret Wilson. From this marriage produced a daughter and a son. In 1988 he married for the second time. He has three brothers. Kretzmer in 2011 was admitted to the rank of Officer of the Order of the British Empire ( OBE). On 8 April 2011 he received an honorary doctorate from Rhodes University.
Career
Journalism
From 1946 he was a journalist for a movie magazine in Johannesburg, in which he wrote weekly about movies. From 1951 to 1954 he worked as a reporter for the Sunday Express. From 1954 he worked as a columnist in London, first for the Daily Sketch and then for the Sunday Dispatch until 1961. During the years 1962 to 1978, he wrote theater reviews for the Daily Express from 1978 to Kretzmer wrote TV critic for the Daily Mail.
Songwriter
In 1960 he wrote the lyrics for some of British television series. Kretzmer won an Ivor Novello Award with the song Goodness Gracious Me, which was sung by Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren. On the song She, which was sung by Charles Aznavour and was for 14 weeks in the UK at number one, Kretzmer wrote. This song has been used in several films such as Notting Hill, Tadpole, Love and Other Disasters and the Spanish drama Diary of a nymphomaniac.
For his songs in the musical Les Misérables Kretzmer received a Tony Award in 1987 and a year later won a Grammy. For the film adaptation of the musical Kretzmer worked back to the lyrics, which were sung, among others, Hugh Jackman, with. For his work he was nominated together with Claude- Michel Schönberg and Alain Boublil for an Oscar.