Bricusse told The Sunday Express of Britain in 2017. Beatrice Lillie, a star of the day known for offbeat musical comedy, saw his work and was impressed, hiring him to be her comic foil in a show she was performing at the Globe Theater, “An Evening With Beatrice Lillie.” The great thing about them as well was that they were literate, and wrote story songs.”Īs an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge, he was active in the drama club Footlights, writing and directing musical comedy shows. “I thought I was going to be a journalist at first, but I gradually fell in love with all these great writers like Irving Berlin and Cole Porter, who were at the peak of their powers then. “I fell in love with the idea of writing songs when I was a child,” he told The Herald of Glasgow in 2016. “Anyone who has written ‘What Kind of Fool Am I?’ and ‘My Old Man’s a Dustman’ should be revered for ever.” “His catalogue of songs is enormous - his achievements endless,” Mr. Bricusse published a memoir in 2015, “Pure Imagination: A Sorta-Biography,” one of its several forewords was written by his friend Elton John. Donegan and Peter Buchanan but used a pen name, Beverly Thorn, “because I was worried about it being down-market,” as he told The Telegraph of Britain in an interview in January. Bricusse’s biggest, and earliest, hits in his native England was a song that some listeners may not have even realized he had a hand in: “My Old Man’s a Dustman,” a chart-topping novelty number recorded by Lonnie Donegan in 1960. Bricusse that was sung by Nancy Sinatra and recorded later by many others. Another Bond film, “You Only Live Twice,” featured a title song by Mr. Newley wrote the lyrics to John Barry’s melody. Shirley Bassey had a Top 10 hit in 1965 with “Goldfinger,” the title song from the 1964 James Bond movie, for which Mr. Another song from “Willy Wonka,” “Pure Imagination,” has been recorded by numerous artists, among them Josh Groban, Maroon 5 and Barbra Streisand.