Dean Pitchford
Hawai’i born and Yale educated, Dean Pitchford acted, sang and danced off- and on-Broadway (Godspell, Pippin) and in over 100 commercials (Dr. Pepper, M&Ms, Burger King, etc.) before turning to songwriting, screenwriting, directing and writing fiction.
He has won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe (Best Song: “Fame”) and has been nominated for three more Oscars (Best Song: “Let’s Hear It for the Boy,” “Footloose,” “After All”); two more Globes; eight Grammys and two Tony Awards.
His songs have been recorded by such iconic artists as Barbra Streisand, Cher, Diana Ross, Irene Cara, LL Cool J, and Dolly Parton.
Dean wrote the screenplay and all the song lyrics in the 1984 classic motion picture Footloose. Its soundtrack album unseated Michael Jackson’s Thriller as #1 on the Billboard charts and spent 10 weeks in that position. Two singles – “Footloose” and “Let’s Hear It for the Boy” – went to #1, and four more songs from the album charted in the Top 40.
In 1991, Whitney Houston’s recording of “All the Man That I Need” (Michael Gore/Dean Pitchford) hit #1 on the Billboard singles chart and was a massive international hit.
In 1998, Dean co-adapted his Footloose screenplay (with Walter Bobbie) for the Broadway stage and (with Tom Snow) added several songs to the score. That production ran for over 700 performances; since then the show been performed throughout the U.S. and around the world (U.K., Australia, Italy, Germany, Macedonia, Dubai, Austria, Japan, etc.)
In 2018, Kenny Loggins’s recording of “Footloose” was named to the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.
On Broadway, Dean’s work has been heard in Up in One; Footloose; Carrie – the Musical; and The Boy from Oz, among others.
His novels The Big One-Oh, Captain Nobody and Nickel Bay Nick have been published by Putnam/Penguin; his performances of the audiobooks of the first two titles were both nominated for Grammys.
To date, his songs have sold over 70 million records worldwide.
In 2024 Dean was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.