Hy Zaret
Hy Zaret is the pen name for
William Albert Stirrat (
November 5,
1919—
July 2,
2004). He was born in
Syracuse, New York and was a
composer and
lyricist, best known for writing the lyrics to "
Unchained Melody", one of the most-recorded songs of all time.
He originally wrote the lyrics to "Unchained Melody" as a 16-year-old in honor of Mary Louise "Cookie" Pierce, whom he considered to be "the prettiest girl in my neighborhood."
Pierce married another man, and Stirrat met and married his wife, Bernice, in
1958, with whom he had three children and six grandchildren.
Stirrat teamed up with composer
Alex North, who wrote the music for "Unchained Melody" in
1936. Attempts to get the song recorded by
Bing Crosby and
Duke Ellington failed and Stirrat gave up on the song. Stirrat contributed some songs to a few uninspiring "
B-movies" in the early 1940s and produced a set of children's science songs in the late 1950s, but otherwise did not have much musical success.
"Unchained Melody" became a hit song when it was featured in the
1955 prison
movie Unchained. But Stirrat didn't receive any
royalties for the lyrics — not even when it became a hit song with
The Righteous Brothers in
1965 — until he joined the
Songwriters Guild in
1979 to register his claim. The claim was disputed until
1982, when a court ruled that Stirrat, indeed, was the author of the lyrics and was entitled to royalties for them. Stirrat never received all the royalties that were due to him and much of those royalties went to lawyers fighting for the claim.
The claim was complicated by the fact that in the intervening years, at least five other men had claimed to be Hy Zaret and were collecting royalties for the lyrics.
He didn't pursue music as a career. He studied engineering and
aerodynamics and became an
electronics engineer for the
U.S. Army,
General Electric, and
Northrop Grumman.
He retired in
1992 and died on
July 2,
2004 in
Freehold Township, New Jersey.
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Farmingdale, NJ, News Transcript article
