Sheldon Harnick

Sheldon Harnick was an American lyricist and songwriter whose partnership with composer Jerry Bock produced a string of Broadway musicals. He was born in Chicago, grew up in Portage Park, took up the violin as a child and started composing while at Carl Schurz High School. After serving in the Army, he earned a music degree at Northwestern University, played with Chicago orchestras, then settled in New York to write for revues and musicals. Meeting Bock around 1956 led to Fiorello! (1959), which took the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and a Tony. Among their later shows were She Loves Me (1963), Fiddler on the Roof (1964), The Apple Tree (1966) and The Rothschilds (1970). Harnick collected three Tony Awards, provided the libretto for Henry Mollicone's opera Coyote Tales, and in 2014 issued the album Sheldon Harnick: Hidden Treasures, drawn from demos and cut songs.