GARY GELD, American composer of Broadway musicals and hit songs is known for his Long-running Broadway musicals PURLIE and SHENANDOAH as well as his Number 1 hits Sealed With a Kiss, Hurting Each Other, and Save Your Heart For Me. He was also among the first independent record producers in the early 1960s.

Born in Paterson, N.J.in 1935, Gary lost both his parents at the age of 3 and grew up in an orphanage in Clifton New Jersey. Also at the age of 3 he sat down at a doily-covered piano and, never having seen a keyboard, played “My Country Tis of Thee” with two hands - astonishing everyone in the room. He had a remarkable memory and could play a melody back verbatim after only one hearing.

Early years

He studied classical piano with Clarence Adler and composition with Stanley Wolfe at Juilliard.

A graduate of Clifton High School, he wrote the class graduation song in 1953 and began attending NYU on a music scholarship.

Despite his classical training, he decided against a career as a classical pianist. He then switched from music at NYU to their School of Commerce (now "Stern" ) receiving a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration in 1957 while attending school full-time all day, then working full-time nights as an NBC page in Rockefeller Center.

Subsequent to college, he played cocktail piano at the Left Bank, a restaurant across from the old Madison Square Garden. There he was heard by the casting director for Rodgers and Hammerstein who introduced him to Mary Rodgers, daughter of Richard, who was in need of a rehearsal pianist at Tamiment - a resort in the Poconos. Others working at Tamiment that year at the outset of their theatre careers included Woody Allen, Jonathan Tunick, and Fred Ebb. Following that summer of 1959, Gary began writing songs in earnest.

Pop Songwriting period

He formed a collaboration with Peter Udell in 1961 and that team had 45 of their songs recorded the first year without a single success. They then borrowed $9,000, hired musicians, booked a studio and went into that studio with Brian Hyland whom they had met in the famous Brill Building. Brian had just had a major success with Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, a novelty song, and was unhappy with the follow-up his record company wanted him to record; another novelty song.

Gary and Peter produced 4 songs that they had written at that one session and two of them, namely Ginny Come Lately (which went on to become a Top 5 song in nearly every country of the world in a multitude of languages) as well as its follow-up Sealed With a Kiss which reached Number 3 in America and Number 1 in numerous countries. That recording received for the writers their first Gold Record. Following this they formed Geld-Udell Music and G-U Productions, publishing their own songs and recording their own hits as well as managing the artists.

Sealed With a Kiss had continued success in later years with Top Five recordings by Bobby Vinton as well Gary Lewis & the Playboys. The original Hyland recording was re-released in the U.K. in 1987, some 25 years after its first release, and became a Top 5 hit all over again. In the 1990s the song was recorded by Jason Donovan in England and went quickly to Number 1. Other number 1 hits in this period include Hurting Each Other by the Carpenters as well as Save Your Heart for Me by Gary Lewis & Playboys. C&W Top 5 includes Getting Married by Dottie West and He Says the Same Things To Me by Skeeter Davis (ASCAP Country & Western Award 1964.) Additional singers recording Geld-Udell songs include, among many others: Aretha Franklin, Connie Francis, the Everly Brothers, Johnny Mathis, the BeeGees, Cliff Richard & Dionne Warwick.

When his songs had difficulty getting airplay after the introduction of the Beatles and the English pop invasion to America, and discouraged that he could not get a hearing with Broadway producers who thought of him as strictly a “pop” songwriter, Gary moved to Los Angeles in 1968. It was shortly after moving that he received a call from producer Philip Rose who had heard his early R&B successes with Jackie Wilson and Linda Hopkins asking him if he would be interested in coming back to New York to write the music for a musical version of Purlie, an Ossie Davis play Rose had produced ten years earlier as a straight play. Rather than move back – by now Gary was married with a then 1 year old son - he wrote the music in L.A. and phoned & faxed it all in until casting and rehearsals began, moving to New York only for the rehearsals and previews.

Broadway career

Purlie had its previews right on Broadway at the Broadway Theater without benefit of an out of town tryout and went on to garner 5 Tony Award nominations, one for its composer and winning 2 for its stars Cleavon Little and Melba Moore. For its writers, Purlie awarded them their 1st Tony nomination. “ I Got Love” was its standout song and Gary and Peter produced the Original Cast Album which garnered for them their 1st Grammy nomination.

The show was the first of a string of black musicals in the 70s and 80s and its success led to other black musicals being able to get produced such as The Wiz, etc. Purlie ,which ran 1 1/2 years on Broadway brought a new demographic into the theater as black audiences, which had sparsely attended Broadway before, became a major new audience factor. Purlie’s music has been performed by the New York Philharmonic in concert.

While Purlie was running, the Carpenters released one of Geld-Udell songs called “Hurting Each Other, which went to Number 1 and was rewarded with the team’s 2^nd Gold Record after Sealed With a Kiss. During this time Geld and Udell also produced the number one “I’m Gonna Be Strong” with Gene Pitney.

Following its Broadway run Purlie was videotaped with Gary as its Music Director and won a Cable Ace Award as best musical recorded for TV.

Purlie was followed up in 1975 with “Shenandoah”, an early film to stage transfer and went from a highly successful tryout at the Goodspeed Opera House in Connecticut straight to Broadway, opening at the Alvin Theater-now the Neil Simon -and running some 1,050 performances bringing Gary his 2^nd Tony nomination as Best Composer and winning a Tony for its book and star John Cullum. “Freedom” from Shenandoah accompanied the re-dedication of the Statue of Liberty in 1986. Once again, Gary produced the Original Cast album for which he received his 2^nd Grammy nomination. Both Purlie and Shenandoah are on all lists of longest running Broadway musicals.

Unable to agree with his collaborators on future musicals, Gary reluctantly agreed to score Angel, a musical version of Look Homeward Angel. The show closed very quickly after some 5 performances.

His songs are still performed with new recordings coming from many countries every year. In 2015 his very first success Sealed With a Kiss was played on the Mad Men finale.