Leslie Bricusse

The lyric of Goldfinger — written in 1964 with Anthony Newley to John Barry's music and delivered by Shirley Bassey — was the first of two James Bond titles Bricusse put words to; the second, You Only Live Twice, again set to Barry's music, was sung by Nancy Sinatra in 1967. Born in London in 1931, Bricusse met Newley at the end of the 1950s, and together they wrote Stop the World – I Want to Get Off and The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd, which between them produced What Kind of Fool Am I and Feeling Good. He took two Academy Awards — for Talk to the Animals from Doctor Dolittle and, with Henry Mancini, for the song score of Victor/Victoria — and wrote the songs for Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Scrooge and Jekyll & Hyde. Appointed OBE in 2001, he died at Saint-Paul-de-Vence in 2021. He was educated at Caius College, Cambridge, where he was secretary and then president of the Footlights and began writing for Beatrice Lillie. Stop the World – I Want to Get Off reached the stage in 1961 and the screen in 1966, The Roar of the Greasepaint followed in 1965, and the songs for Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory came in 1971.