Lawrence, who fractured his pelvic bone in a fall in his Redding, Conn., home Friday, died of complications Sunday at Danbury Hospital, said Richard D. Lawrence, Lawrence's longtime partner whom he adopted.
In a songwriting career that began in the early 1930s, Lawrence had his songs recorded by artists such as Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, the Andrews Sisters, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Tony Bennett.
Among his songs, written in collaboration, are “Sunrise Serenade," which was recorded by Glenn Miller; and “Yes, My Darling Daughter," a hit for Dinah Shore.
Singer-pianist Michael Feinstein, a friend, said Lawrence had lots of hits through the years but comparatively few became standards.
“A standard is a song that lives through the ages," Feinstein told The Times on Tuesday. “Like many songwriters, a lot of his hits at the time have not endured past the era in which they were popular."
But, Feinstein said, “various other songs were ones that became a veritable theme song" for the performer, and their status as standards was assured.
“Tenderly," he said, became Rosemary Clooney's theme song. “All or Nothing at All," he said, “was one of Frank Sinatra's early hits that survived because of Sinatra's love of the song and his revising of it and re-recording it through the years." And “Beyond the Sea" will always be connected with Bobby Darin.
“It was a French song for which an English lyric was created with no success," Feinstein said. “Then Jack wrote a new English lyric, which was successful with an anthemic sort of lyric that matched the majesty of the tune.
“But when Bobby Darin found the song and swung it, it became an instant classic, and people only perform it a la Bobby Darin."
Although Lawrence was primarily a lyricist, he also had great success writing music and lyrics, said Feinstein, who wrote the foreword to Lawrence's 2004 memoir “They All Sang My Songs."
Lawrence's song “Linda," which he wrote for his lawyer's young daughter, Linda Eastman -- she later married Paul McCartney -- was a big hit for Buddy Clark. And “If I Didn't Care" established the success of the Ink Spots.
