Dean Pitchford Screenwriting What was one of his first screenwritings? Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984).
Was Footloose well received?
Was Footloose (1984) well received?
Inspired by a 1979 news story about Elmore City, Oklahoma, a town which had finally lifted an 80-year-old ban on dancing, Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984). He collaborated on the nine-song score with Kenny Loggins, Eric Carmen, Jim Steinman, Sammy Hagar and others. The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at #1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history.  When the soundtrack album hit #1 on the Billboard album charts, it deposed Michael Jackson's Thriller and held that position for 10 weeks. It went on top charts all over the world, eventually selling more than 17 million albums. Kenny Loggins's single of the title song hit #1 on March 31, 1984, and stayed there for three weeks. Five weeks later (May 26, 1984) Deniece Williams's "Let's Hear It for the Boy" went to #1, as well. Four more songs from the soundtrack charted in the Top 40; "Almost Paradise," which reached #7, was co-written with Eric Carmen, and was performed by Mike Reno of Loverboy and Ann Wilson of Heart; "Dancing in the Sheets," which reached #17, was co-written with Bill Wolfer, and was performed by Shalamar; "I'm Free (Heaven Helps the Man)," which reached #22 and, like the film's title track, was co-written with, and performed by, Kenny Loggins; and "Holding Out for a Hero," which reached #34, was co-written with Jim Steinman, and was performed by Bonnie Tyler. "Footloose" was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Song; and "Footloose" and "Let's Hear It for the Boy" (co-written with Tom Snow) both received Academy Awards nominations (1985). Pitchford received two Grammy nominations: Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, and Best R&B Song "Dancing in the Sheets."  Paramount Pictures's remake of Footloose, which was again based on Pitchford's original screenplay and featured six of his songs, was released in October 2011. Blake Shelton had a hit with his re-recording of the title song.  Next Pitchford wrote the screenplay of, and collaborated on the authorship and composition of all the songs for, the 1989 musical film Sing. CANNOTANSWER
The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at #1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history.
Dean Pitchford (born July 29, 1951) is an American songwriter, screenwriter, director, actor, and novelist. His work has earned him an Oscar and a Golden Globe Award, as well as nominations for three additional Oscars, two more Golden Globes, eight Grammy Awards, and two Tony Awards.

Early life
Pitchford was born in Honolulu, where he attended Catholic schools, graduating in 1968 from Saint Louis High School. He began his performance career as an actor and a singer with the Honolulu Community Theatre (now Diamond Head Theatre), the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra and the Honolulu Theatre for Youth, among others. While studying at Yale University, Pitchford performed with numerous campus drama groups, but his focus gradually turned off-campus, where he worked with the Wooster Square Revival, an experimental theatre company that offered acting opportunities to recovering addicts and alcoholics.

In 1969, Pitchford returned to Honolulu as an assistant to authors Faye Hammel and Sylvan Levey in updating the popular guidebook Hawai’i on $5 and $10 A Day, and researching Trans World Airlines’ Budget Guide to Hawai’i, the first of a series of guidebooks that would eventually turn into the popular series TWA Getaway Guides.

Performing
In 1971, Pitchford was cast in the off-Broadway musical Godspell in New York City. He also starred in Godspell at Ford's Theatre. Bob Fosse cast Pitchford as Pippin in the Broadway show of the same name in 1975. While in Pippin, Pitchford acted, sang, and danced in over 100 commercials for such products as Dr Pepper, McDonald's, Lay's, and M&M's.

Early songwriting
As a result of performing his early songwriting efforts in cabarets around Manhattan, he was invited to write with such composers as Stephen Schwartz, Alan Menken and Rupert Holmes. In 1979,  he collaborated with recording artist and cabaret performer Peter Allen to write new songs for Allen’s one-man Broadway revue, Up In One.

With composer Michael Gore, Pitchford collaborated on three songs for Alan Parker's 1980 motion picture Fame; these were "Red Light," a disco hit for singer Linda Clifford; the symphonic/rock finale "I Sing the Body Electric;" and the title song "Fame," which became a multi-platinum, international best seller for Irene Cara. That song earned Gore and Pitchford an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy nomination for Song of the Year (1981). They also received a Grammy nomination for Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media.

When Pitchford was signed by Warner Brothers Publishing (1981) he began collaborating with a variety of songwriters. Among the first songs whose lyrics he wrote in collaboration with composer Tom Snow was "Don't Call It Love," which was first recorded by Kim Carnes on her 1981 album Mistaken Identity; the selection charted in the U.S. country singles top-ten for Dolly Parton in 1985 and was named the BMI Country Song of the Year.

For the ill-fated 1981 movie The Legend of the Lone Ranger, Pitchford wrote a narrative ballad, "The Man In the Mask." This was spoken (throughout the movie) and sung (at its beginning and end) by Merle Haggard.

"You Should Hear How She Talks About You," another Snow/Pitchford composition, was a Top 5 hit for Melissa Manchester for which she won the Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance in 1983. That same year, Pitchford, Kenny Loggins and Steve Perry wrote and composed "Don’t Fight It," a Top 20 hit that was Grammy-nominated in the Best Pop Vocal Duo category. With musical director Michael Miller, he wrote the theme song for the weekly dance-music show Solid Gold (1980–88).

Screenwriting
Inspired by a 1979 news story about Elmore City, Oklahoma, a town which had finally lifted an 80-year-old ban on dancing, Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984). He collaborated on the nine-song score with Kenny Loggins, Eric Carmen, Jim Steinman, Sammy Hagar and others. The film, directed by Herbert Ross, opened at No. 1 and was, at the time, the highest-grossing February release in film history.

When the soundtrack album hit No. 1 on the Billboard album charts, it deposed Michael Jackson’s Thriller and held that position for 10 weeks. It went on top charts all over the world, eventually selling more than 17 million albums. Kenny Loggins's single of the title song hit No. 1 on March 31, 1984, and stayed there for three weeks. Five weeks later (May 26, 1984) Deniece Williams’s "Let’s Hear It for the Boy" went to No. 1, as well. Four more songs from the soundtrack charted in the Top 40; "Almost Paradise," which reached No. 7, was co-written with Eric Carmen, and was performed by Mike Reno of Loverboy and Ann Wilson of Heart; "Dancing in the Sheets" which reached No. 17, was co-written with Bill Wolfer, and was performed by Shalamar; "I’m Free (Heaven Helps the Man)," which reached No. 2 and, like the film's title track, was co-written with, and performed by, Kenny Loggins; and "Holding Out for a Hero," which reached No. 34, was co-written with Jim Steinman, and was performed by Bonnie Tyler. "Footloose" was nominated for a Golden Globe as Best Song; and "Footloose" and "Let's Hear It for the Boy" (co-written with Tom Snow) both received Academy Award nominations (1985). Pitchford received two Grammy nominations: Best Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media, and Best R&B Song "Dancing in the Sheets."

Paramount Pictures's remake of Footloose, which was again based on Pitchford's original screenplay and featured six of his songs, was released in October 2011. Blake Shelton had a hit with his re-recording of the title song.

Next Pitchford wrote the screenplay of, and collaborated on the authorship and composition of all the songs for, the 1989 musical film Sing.

Directing
Pitchford wrote and directed a short film, The Washing Machine Man (1991), for Chanticleer Films; it was invited to be shown out-of-competition at the Sundance Film Festival. That led to Pitchford being hired as director of HBO's Blood Brothers: The Joey DiPaolo Story (1992), which won that year's Cable Ace Award for Best Children's Program.

Later songwriting 

With Marvin Hamlisch, Pitchford wrote Welcome, the Invocation for the Opening Ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics; it was performed by a choir of 1,000 voices in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. He co-wrote the song "Did You Hear Thunder?," with Tom Snow, for the George Benson album While the City Sleeps... (1986). For the motion picture Chances Are (1989), Pitchford and Tom Snow composed "After All," an international hit for Cher and Peter Cetera which garnered Pitchford his fourth Oscar nomination; and two years later Pitchford's and Gore's "All the Man That I Need" was a worldwide No. 1 song for Whitney Houston. The soundtrack for the 1988 film Oliver & Company, to which Pitchford and Tom Snow contributed "Streets of Gold," sung by Ruth Pointer, was Grammy-nominated.

Pitchford contributed lyrics to Richard Marx's song "That Was Lulu" for Marx's 1989 album Repeat Offender, with whom he also wrote "Through My Eyes" for Martina McBride for the Bambi II soundtrack. He worked for many years on a stage adaptation of Footloose, which finally opened on Broadway on October 22, 1998. The original cast recording was nominated for a Grammy in the category of Best Musical Show Album. After over 700 performances, the show closed on July 2, 2000. The musical continues to be performed all over the U.S. and around the world.

The stage musical of Carrie, with Pitchford's lyrics (music by Michael Gore, book by Lawrence D. Cohen), was presented by MCC Theatre in New York City as the final offering in their 2011-12 season. A previous production of that show had been presented in 1988 by the Royal Shakespeare Company, first in Stratford-upon-Avon in England, and then in a famously short run on Broadway at the Virginia Theatre. The 2012 MCC production was nominated for Best Revival by numerous critics's groups, including the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards.

Australian film star Hugh Jackman won a Tony Award for his portrayal of songwriter Peter Allen in The Boy from Oz (2003), in which he sang songs ("Not the Boy Next Door" and "Once Before I Go") which had been written and composed more than two decades earlier by the real Allen (by then deceased) and Pitchford. Jackman repeated his performances of those songs when he returned to New York City in his one-man concert, "Hugh Jackman - Back on Broadway" (2011).

Pitchford has contributed songs to The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003), Shrek 2 (2004), Ice Princess (2005) and Bambi II (2006).

The 1984 recording of "Footloose" was named to the 2017 National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in March, 2018.

Fiction writing
G. P. Putnam's Sons/Penguin Group published Pitchford's first young adult novel, The Big One-Oh, in March 2007, and Random House's Listening Library released the audiobook (read by Pitchford) in January 2008. That recording received a 2008 Grammy nomination in the category of Best Spoken Word Album for Children. His second novel, Captain Nobody, was published by G.P. Putnam's Sons/Penguin Group and released on audiobook by Random House in 2009. That recording received a 2009 nomination in the same Grammy category. Putnam/Penguin published Pitchford's third novel, Nickel Bay Nick, in 2013.

Personal life
Pitchford is openly gay. His song "If I Never Met You" was inspired by Pitchford's boyfriend at the time, who later became his husband. "If I Never Met You" appeared on Barbra Streisand's 1999 album A Love Like Ours.

References

External links
Official Dean Pitchford website
Official website for The Big One-Oh
Official website for "Captain Nobody" novel

 
 

1951 births
Best Original Song Academy Award-winning songwriters
Golden Globe Award-winning musicians
Songwriters from Hawaii
Living people
Male actors from Honolulu
Writers from Honolulu
LGBT musicians from the United States
21st-century LGBT people
Footloose is a fictional character from the G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero toyline, comic books and animated series. He is the G.I. Joe Team's infantry trooper, and debuted in 1985.

Profile
His real name is Andrew D. Meyers, and his rank is that of corporal E-4. Footloose was born in Gary, Indiana. Footloose wears a jungle camouflage pattern in his uniform and is equipped with a PASGT helmet with additional camo over it.

Footloose's primary military specialty is infantry, and his secondary military specialty is special services (basketball coach). He was his high school valedictorian, captain of the track team, and an Eagle scout. While going for his degree in Physical Education on a state scholarship, he suddenly dropped out and moved to the coast for about three years. He spent time there pondering the pointlessness of his existence, when he decided to join the Army. After basic training and AIT at Fort Benning, he graduated jump school and the desert training unit. Footloose is a qualified expert in all NATO and Warsaw Pact small arms.

In the UK Action Force toy series, Footloose's real name is Andrew D. Mackay, and he is from Dundee, Scotland, where he competed in the Highland Games and studied Celtic mythology.

Toys
Footloose was first released as an action figure in 1985. Proposed code-names for the figure included "Action", "Bravo" and "Grunt". The figure was repainted and released as part of the "Slaughter's Marauders" line in 1989.

Comics

Marvel Comics
In the Marvel Comics G.I. Joe series, he first appeared in G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #37 (July 1985). In that issue, despite his known inexperience, he is assigned to drive a small tank as backup to Flint. They are backup for the group of Blowtorch, Ripcord, Gung-Ho and Ripcord's girlfriend, Candy Appel. Said group had been attacked at the circus by the Crimson Twins. All the Joes become involved in a running battle throughout the grounds. He is then back-up for a raid on a suspected Cobra officer's house; coincidentally it is the home of Candy Appel's father.

Footloose also takes part in the invasion of the Cobra-held town of Springfield.

Action Force
Footloose also appeared in the U.K. Action Force comic series, which had all original England based stories starring familiar Joe characters. In the first issue, Footloose is described as "one of our best field agents". Following, a Cobra underwater soldier Footloose had captured in the first issue is seen standing over his prone body with a knife. However, Footloose helps raid a Cobra outpost soon after. He then assists in stopping a Crimson Guard plan to blow up the Eiffel Tower. Another Crimson Guard, at a later time, ends up holding a classroom of his own students hostage. Footloose is one of the many authorities on the scene; ready to drop the man with a sniper rifle. He is not needed as of the Guard's own students talks the man into surrendering.

Devil's Due
Footloose takes part in the three battle between the Joes, Cobra, and the Coil.

During the World War III storyline in America's Elite, Footloose is among the Joes deployed to Bolivia.

Animated series

Sunbow
Footloose first appeared in the Sunbow/Marvel G.I. Joe miniseries "The Pyramid of Darkness". In this series, his personality is portrayed as usually in a zen state of mind, and one which is frequently out of touch with reality. 

He is featured in the episode "Excalibur", in which he is one of the Joes setting up an anti-Cobra radar system in Britain. When Storm Shadow infiltrates the area, Footloose, Quick Kick and Spirit pursue him. Footloose is captured by Storm Shadow, but is later rescued by Quick Kick.

Footloose's most notable role was in "Hearts and Cannons". The episode begins with him and Dusty jumping out of a damaged G.I. Joe cargo plane, along with their Mauler tank. They find themselves in a desert, where Cobra is testing their new Plasma Cannon weapon. They rescue Dr. Nancy Winters, a beautiful scientist who was tricked into designing the Plasma Cannon for Destro, and compete for her affection. Walking through a dust storm, Footloose escapes with Dr. Winters as he is ordered by Dusty, who fends off Cobra forces. Footloose and Dr. Winters are captured by King Ahmed Razouli Jabal, who initially mistakes them for Cobra members, but releases them when he recognizes the G.I. Joe logo on Footloose's uniform. The king gives Footloose the Mauler that was ejected earlier, and Footloose joins him in liberating his country from Cobra. Footloose eventually destroys Destro's plasma tank with the Mauler.

Footloose is featured in one of the series' PSAs, in which he teaches a child how to stop a nosebleed.

G.I. Joe: The Movie
Footloose appeared briefly in the 1987 animated film G.I. Joe: The Movie, with no speaking role.

DiC
He appeared again in the DiC-produced G.I. Joe animated series. He only appeared in the "Operation Dragonfire" miniseries, again with a silent role.

References

External links
 Footloose at JMM's G.I. Joe Comics Home Page

Comics characters introduced in 1985
Fictional characters from Indiana
Fictional corporals
Fictional military sergeants
Fictional United States Army personnel
G.I. Joe soldiers
Male characters in animated series
Male characters in comics Footloose: Original Soundtrack of the Paramount Motion Picture is the original soundtrack of the Paramount motion picture Footloose. The original nine-track album was released in 1984 and reached number one on the US Billboard 200 chart on April 21, 1984, where it stayed until June 23, 1984. When it was re-released in 1998, four bonus tracks were added to the album, all of which were used in the film as well. In 2002, Sony International released the "Australian Souvenir Edition", also titled "Australian Cast Special Edition". Two megamixes were added to the album, featuring the Australian cast of the Footloose musical. The original soundtrack contained six Billboard Hot 100 Top 40 hits, three of which reached the Top 10, including two number-one hits, "Footloose" by Kenny Loggins and "Let's Hear It for the Boy" by Deniece Williams, and "Almost Paradise", a duet by Ann Wilson and Mike Reno that reached number seven, plus "Somebody's Eyes" by Karla Bonoff climbed to number sixteen on the Adult Contemporary chart. Many people bought the soundtrack album without even seeing the film.

In 2009, Doveman released a reimagining of the soundtrack album. The original soundtrack for the 2011 remake was released by Atlantic Records and Warner Music Nashville on September 27, 2011.

Track listing

 signifies a remixer

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

1984 soundtrack albums
1980s film soundtrack albums
Pop rock soundtracks
Dance-pop soundtracks
Film soundtracks
Columbia Records soundtracks