“Cry Me a River” Songwriter Was 98

Arthur Hamilton, the Oscar-nominated songwriter best known for his smoky torch-song classic “Cry Me a River,” memorably recorded by Julie London, Ella Fitzgerald, Joe Cocker and many others, has died. He was 98.

His death was announced this week by ASCAP and the Society of Composers and Lyricists; details were not immediately available.

Hamilton received his Oscar nom for best song (shared with composer Riz Ortolani) for “Till Love Touches Your Life” from Madron (1970), performed by Richard Williams and Jan Daley for the movie Western that starred Richard Boone and Leslie Caron.

For Warner Bros.’ Pete Kelly’s Blues (1955), starring and directed by Jack Webb, Hamilton created two wistful songs for Peggy Lee, who played an alcoholic jazz singer in the musical crime film — “He Needs Me” and “Sing a Rainbow,” which would evolve into a children’s classic.

“Cry Me a River” was sung by Fitzgerald for the film but did not survive the cutting room floor. However, London — the actress and Webb’s ex-wife — recorded it for her 1955 debut album, “Julie Is Her Name,” and it soared to No. 9 on the Billboard Hot 100. (London and Hamilton had gone to the Hollywood Professional School together, and he took her to the senior prom.)

Performed from the perspective of a jilted lover, the sparse “Cry Me a River” opens with: “Now you say you’re lonely / You cried the whole night through / Well, you can cry me a river / Cry me a river / I cried a river over you.”

Fitzgerald released her version on her 1961 album Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie!, and Cocker performed his on his 1970 Leon Russell-produced live album Mad Dogs & Englishmen.

“Cry Me a River” also would be recorded by Barbra Streisand, Johnny Mathis, Ray Charles, Harry Connick Jr., Susan Boyle, Michael Bublé, Jeff Beck, Diana Krall, Björk and Aerosmith, among many others.

“I just liked the combination of words,” Hamilton told The Wall Street Journal in 2010. “Instead of ‘Eat your heart out’ or ‘I’ll get even with you,’ it sounded like a good, smart retort to somebody who had hurt your feelings or broken your heart.

“Its general use as a put-down phrase has continued to delight and amaze me. Whenever my wife and I are watching a film or TV show and the phrase is used, we laugh and gently punch each other.”

Arthur Hamilton Stern was born in Seattle on Oct. 22, 1926. His father, Jack Stern, was a songwriter and orchestrator who worked on films including His Night Out (1935), Jane Withers’ Little Miss Nobody (1936) and Sweetheart of the Navy (1937). His mother, Grace Hamilton, wrote lyrics for her husband’s songs.

He came to Los Angeles with his parents when he was an infant, learned to play piano and in 1949 wrote a live stage musical, What a Day, for local station KTTV. He then spent a couple years working for a music publishing company.

Hamilton said he was inspired by legendary cabaret performer Bobby Short. “I told people many times, ‘I never went to college, I went to Bobby Short,’ ” he noted in 2016 on an episode of The Paul Leslie Hour podcast.

Bobby Darin recorded “He Needs Me” as “She Needs Me” in 1959 for his second album — the one with “Mack the Knife” and “Beyond the Sea” on it — and Hamilton’s résumé also included “Rain Sometimes,” “One Look” and “The Best I Ever Was.”

He earned Emmy noms in 1993 and ’94 for his tunes “Good Things Grow” and “Something Is Out There” from the respective TV movies Blind Spot and The Corpse Had a Familiar Face.

London’s version of “Cry Me a River,” backed only by Barney Kessel on guitar and Ray Leatherwood on bass and released on the newly founded Liberty Records label, became her signature song. It was inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry in 2015.

“So fully does London’s image, persona and, of course, her voice convey and encompass the world of smoky nightclubs and intimate stages, that every would-be chanteuse, whenever they take to the stage to sing out a song, are (whether they know it or not, whether they credit her or not) both channeling and paying homage to Miss Julie London,” the Library of Congress’ Cary O’Dell wrote.

Hamilton served as the second president of the Society of Composers and Lyricists from 1985-87 and was a music branch governor at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Scientists and a member of the ASCAP Foundation Board.