After graduating from the University of Miami, Herman headed back to New York, writing and playing piano in a jazz club. He made his Broadway debut in 1960 contributing songs to the review From A To Z — alongside material by Fred Ebb and Woody Allen — and the next year tackled the entire score to a musical about the founding of the state of Israel, Milk And Honey. It earned him his first Tony nomination.
Hello, Dolly!, starring Carol Channing, opened in 1964 and ran for 2,844 performances, becoming Broadway’s longest-running musical at the time. It won 10 Tonys and has been revived many times, most recently in 2017 with Bette Midler in the title role.
Mame followed in 1966, starring Angela Lansbury, and went on to run for more than 1,500 performances. She handed him his Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2009, saying he created songs like him: “Bouncy, buoyant and optimistic.”
In 1983 he had another hit with La Cage Aux Folles, a sweetly radical musical of its age, decades before the fight for marriage equality.
It was a lavish adaptation of a successful French film about two gay men who own a drag nightclub on the Riviera. It contained the gay anthem I Am What I Am and ran for 1,760 performances.
Later in life, Herman composed a song for Barney’s Great Adventure, contributed the score for the 1996 made-for-TV movie Mrs Santa Claus — earning him an Emmy nomination — and wrote his autobiography, Showtune.
He is survived by his partner, Terry Marler, a property broker.
