Rod McKuen

One of the best-selling American poets of the '60s, Rod McKuen also achieved considerable success as a singer, songwriter and soundtrack composer in a varied career which alienated critics but enthralled the general public. Typically dealing with themes of love and loss, McKuen's unashamedly sentimental brand of poetry first found an audience during the Beat Generation, a period in which he also recorded several pop albums for Decca and appeared in various rock and roll pictures.

After moving to France in the early '60s, McKuen helped to raise Jacques Brel's international profile with a number of hit English-language adaptations, released a string of collaborative records with Anita Kerr and earned consecutive Oscar nominations for his work on "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" (1969) and "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" (1970). Frank Sinatra, Perry Como and Dusty Springfield were just some of the names who would go on to tackle his work, but it was as a poet where McKuen's talents truly flourished, and by the time he announced his live retirement in 1981, his book sales were fast approaching an astonishing 60 million.

Born in Oakland, CA in 1933, McKuen ran away from home aged eleven to escape an abusive stepfather, and supported himself through various odd jobs while also keeping a journal where he first started writing poetry. Despite a lack of formal education, McKuen found work as a newspaper columnist and propaganda script writer during the Korean War before he started showcasing his poems alongside the likes of Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac on the San Francisco scene.

After venturing into folk music with a residency at The Purple Onion, McKuen released a number of pop albums for the Decca label, and further demonstrated his versatility with acting roles in musical pictures "Rock, Pretty Baby" (1956), and "Summer Love" (1958), and western "Wild Heritage" (1959), a stint in Lionel Hampton's band, and a brief composing role on "The CBS Workshop" (CBS, 1960).

McKuen relocated again in the early '60s to France where he forged a musical partnership with Belgian singer-songwriter Jacques Brel that would prove to be pivotal to both parties' careers. McKuen's English-language adaptations introduced Brel's work to a much wider audience with the likes of "If You Go Away ("Ne me quitte pas") and "Seasons in the Sun" ("Le moribund") later becoming hits for Damita Jo and Terry Jacks respectively, and also boosted his own reputation as a world-class interpreter of song.

McKuen also gave the same treatment to songs by Gilbert Becaud, Pierre Delanoe and Michel Sardou, and in 1967 struck up another fruitful working relationship, this time with Anita Kerr and the San Sebastian Strings for a series of vocal pop albums including The Sea, The Earth and The Sky. McKuen had also built up a large following of his own during this period with a number of poetry collections including Stanyan Street and Other Sorrows, Listen to the Warm and Lonesome Cities, with the spoken word recording of the latter giving McKuen his first and only Grammy.

McKuen then added to his awards tally in 1970 when he picked up a Best Original Song Golden Globe for his contribution to "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" (1969) soundtrack ("Jean"), which was followed by consecutive Oscar nominations for the same song and his work on "A Boy Named Charlie Brown" (1970). After Frank Sinatra commissioned McKuen to write the entirety of 1969 LP, A Man Alone: The Words and Music of McKuen, a whole host of established artists opted to tackle McKuen's well-crafted songs, most notably Perry Como, who scored a major hit with "I Think of You."

As well as adding to his pop discography with the likes of 1970's New Ballads, 1976's Nashville-inspired McKuen Country and 1977's disco-themed Slide Easy In, McKuen also began experimenting with classical music, composing various concertos, symphonies and chamber pieces and even receiving a Pulitzer Prize nomination for his "The City: A Suite For Narrator & Orchestra."

McKuen gradually withdrew from the spotlight in 1981, but continued to write poetry, with his last collection, Rusting in the Rain, arriving in 2004, and also popped up as a voice-over actor in "The Little Mermaid" (1989) and prime-time animation "The Critic" (ABC, 1994-95), while his work continued to be used by everyone from Madonna to David Fincher. McKuen died of pneumonia in Beverly Hills, CA in early 2015 at the age of 81, leaving behind an extensive body of work.