Music producer Richard Perry, who was behind hits by Carly Simon, Barbra Streisand, Tiny Tim and scores of other singing stars, died Tuesday.
He was 82.
His death was confirmed by his friend Daphna Kastner, who said the cause was cardiac arrest and that he died at a Los Angeles hospital.
“He maximized his time here,” Kastner told The Associated Press. “He was generous, fun, sweet and made the world a better place. The world is a little less sweeter without him here. But it’s a little bit sweeter in heaven.”
Perry started out as a drummer, oboist and doo-wop singer before turning that experience into producing cultural touchstones ranging from “You’re So Vain,” with Carly Simon, to “Tiptoe Through the Tulips” with Tiny Tim, to “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before,” sung by Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias.
Over the years, he produced The Pointer Sisters, Fats Domino, Ringo Starr and a host of others, and in the 1970s he nearly succeeded in bringing all four Beatles back together.
In demand and renowned among musicians, Perry hobnobbed with the likes of Paul and Linda McCartney, Mick and Bianca Jagger, Paul Simon, and Tina Turner, among many others.
His luminary liaisons extended to his romances as well; Perry dated Liz Taylor, briefly married actress Rebecca Broussard, and in later years was romantically linked to Jane Fonda. He was also married for a time to fellow music producer Linda Goldner.
Perry received a Grammys Trustee Award for lifetime achievement in 2015.
Streisand credited her longtime friend and collaborator with having “a knack for matching the right song to the right artist,” in her 2023 memoir, “My Name is Barbra.”
Stewart in his autobiography “Rod” recalled the party atmosphere at Perry’s home that made it “the scene of much late-night skullduggery through the 1970s and beyond, and a place you knew you could always fall into at the end of an evening for a full-blown knees-up with drink and music and dancing.”
He is survived by brothers Roger, Fred and Andrew, according to The New York Times.
With News Wire Services
