“She has been declining for the last couple of years, and in the last several weeks, it was clear that she was getting ready to leave, and she died very peacefully without any pain or struggle,” Julie Bergman told CNN in a phone call. “My father and I were with her, and it was beautiful, and she looked beautiful, and it was very peaceful.”
Bergman had “some pneumonia which leads to respiratory failure in patients like this,” her daughter said.
“We met over 60 years ago backstage at a little night club, and never stopped loving each other and working together. Their songs are timeless, and so is our love,” Streisand said. “May she rest in peace.”
The songwriter Paul Williams, the current ASCAP president and chairman, called Bergman “one of the greatest lyricists who ever lived” and a “brilliant songwriter who together with her husband … gave us some of the most beautiful and enduring lyrics of all time.”
“She was a tireless and fierce advocate for music creators not only during her term as president and chairman of ASCAP but throughout her life,” Williams said in a statement. “Our community will miss her intelligence, her wit and her wisdom.”
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