Arthur Hamilton, a composer best known for the enduring torch song “Cry Me a River,” which has been recorded by hundreds of artists, died on May 20 at his home in Los Angeles. He was 98.
His death was announced this month by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and the Society of Composers & Lyricists
Mr. Hamilton’s long career included an Oscar nomination for best original song. But his most famous composition by far was “Cry Me a River.”
It was one of the three songs he wrote for the 1955 film “Pete Kelly’s Blues,” which starred Jack Webb as a jazz musician fighting mobsters in Prohibition-era Kansas City, Mo. At the time, Mr. Webb was also playing his most famous role, Sergeant Joe Friday, on the television series “Dragnet” (1951-59).
Peggy Lee, who played an alcoholic performer in the film, sang Mr. Hamilton’s “Sing a Rainbow” and “He Needs Me.” Ella Fitzgerald, who was also in the film, sang “Cry Me a River,” but her rendition was cut by Mr. Webb, who was also the director and producer.
“Arthur said to me that the irony was that when Ella recorded it” — years later, for her 1961 album “Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie!” — “he thought she made one of the greatest recordings of it ever,” Michael Feinstein, the singer and pianist, said in an interview. “But Jack felt she didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to do it justice.”
Mr. Hamilton quickly made the song available to Ms. London, a friend from high school who was also Mr. Webb’s ex-wife. It became a hit, rising to No. 9 on the Billboard singles chart in 1955.
The song is a bitter rebuke from a jilted lover:
Now you say you’re sorry
For being so untrue
Well, you can cry me a river, cry me a river
I cried a river over you.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal in 2010, Mr. Hamilton explained why he used the phrase “cry me a river.”
“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,” he said.
The song has been covered by Barbra Streisand, Joe Cocker, Ray Charles, Aerosmith and, in 2009, the crooner Michael Bublé, who sang it before Queen Elizabeth II.
Mr. Bublé told The Wall Street Journal in 2010 that the song stood out for its lack of sentimentality.
“There’s almost a darkness that sort of distinguishes it from so many other songs,” he said. “Even if you listen to Julie London’s version, it’s very dark.”
Ms. London’s “Cry Me a River” was added to the National Recording Registry at the Library of Congress in 2015.
“Delivered in a soft, breathy style, ‘Cry’ is basically a revenge anthem, but it nevertheless becomes a romantic come-hither,” Cary O’Dell wrote in an essay for the registry.
Arthur Hamilton Stern was born on Oct. 22, 1926, in Seattle, and moved to Los Angeles with his parents when he was a baby. His father, Jack Stern, wrote songs for several films, including “Folies Bergère de Paris” (1935), which starred Maurice Chevalier, and was also a publicist for Irving Berlin. His mother, Grace (Hamilton) Stern, was a singer who occasionally wrote lyrics for her husband’s songs.
Mr. Hamilton learned to play on the pianos in his house and received a further education from watching performances by the cabaret pianist and singer Bobby Short in a club in Beverly Hills. “I told people many times, ‘I didn’t go to college. I went to Bobby Short,’” he said in 2020 on “The Paul Leslie Hour,” a podcast.
Mr. Hamilton wrote the score for a stage musical, “What a Day,” that was telecast live on the Los Angeles television station KTTV, in 1949; worked for a music publishing company; and signed a contract to write songs for Mr. Webb — first for “Dragnet,” where his tune “Any Questions?” was sung in an episode by Peggy King, and then for “Pete Kelly’s Blues.”
Composing music for “Pete Kelly’s Blues” was a big break for Mr. Hamilton.
“Four years ago,” according to a 1955 article in The Oakland Tribune, “he was delivering drugs for a chain of local pharmacies. He was a frustrated songwriter who spent his spare time scribbling lyrics on the backs of prescription blanks.”
Ms. Lee’s recording of “He Needs Me” was included in the album “Songs From ‘Pete Kelly’s Blues’” (1955), and the song was later covered by Cleo Laine, Nina Simone and others. Both Bobby Darin and Marvin Gaye recorded it as “She Needs Me.”
In 1970, Mr. Hamilton collaborated with Riz Ortolani on “Till Love Touches Your Life” for the movie “Madron,” a western filmed in Israel, which starred Richard Boone as a cowboy and Leslie Caron as a nun. It was nominated for an Oscar for best original song but lost to “For All We Know,” from “Lovers and Other Strangers.”
Mr. Hamilton and Pat Williams were nominated for Primetime Emmys for their songs for the TV movies “Blind Spot” (1993) and “The Corpse Had a Familiar Face” (1994).
Mr. Hamilton’s survivors include his wife, Joyce (Maurer) Hamilton, and a daughter, Claudia Hamilton. His marriage to Mildred Winter ended in divorce.
Mr. Feinstein, an expert on the Great American Songbook who wrote songs with Mr. Hamilton about 15 years ago, said that “Cry Me a River” resonates in part because its emotional intensity builds throughout.
“Songs that are simply not about the clichéd expressions of love,” he said, “have the potential to endure longer than the garden variety love song, because they express something that is a catharsis for people.”
Richard Sandomir, an obituaries reporter, has been writing for The Times for more than three decades.
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