Billy Steinberg, the Grammy-winning songwriter who co-wrote such pop classics as Madonna’s “Like A Virgin,” Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors” and the Bangles’ “Eternal Flame” that were some of the biggest, most indelible hits of the 1980s and beyond, has died, his attorney confirmed to Billboard. Steinberg, who was 10 days away from his 75th birthday, died of cancer in Los Angeles.
In addition to those three songs, Steinberg — who specialized in big, emotional power ballads with impactful, vulnerable lyrics — had two other songs reach No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot 100: Whitney Houston’s “So Emotional” and Heart’s Alone,” all co-written with his longtime writing partner, Tom Kelly.
The lyricist, who landed chart hits for more than 30 years, also penned such tunes as the Pretenders’ “I’ll Stand by You,” the Bangles’ “In Your Room” and the Divinyls’ “I Touch Myself.” Taylor Dayne, Tina Turner, Pat Benatar, Bette Midler, Cheap Trick, Belinda Carlisle and many other artists also recorded his songs.
In a statement to Billboard, Lauper called Steinberg “great lyricist and a wonderful collaborator. He and Tom had such a way of capturing the range within an emotion, from the subtlety to urgency…For ‘True Colors,’ there was a lot of back and forth which I know was hard for him. In the end, he said that I had really invented my own ‘very exquisitely beautiful version’ of the song. That really meant a lot to me. It is a special song.”
“I remember my mom picking me up from elementary school and there was this urgency and magic in the air,” recalls Steinberg’s son, Ezra, who is a songwriter signed to Sony Music Publishing. “I asked what was going on, and she said, ‘Dad has a hit.’ It was [JoJo‘s 2006 song] ‘Too Little Too Late.’ It was the first time I was old enough to really experience one of his hits, and to see the whole process — loving the demo for months, asking him every day when it was coming out, and then finally hearing it on KIIS-FM on the way to and from school. I felt this deep sense of pride and elation. That was magical.”
A 2011 inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Fresno, California, native grew up in Palm Springs, California. After attending Bard College in New York’s Hudson Valley, he pursued a career as an artist with his band Billy Thermal. While they may not have flourished, Steinberg’s career took off after the group’s guitarist played “How Do I Make You,” penned solely by Steinberg, for Linda Rondstadt, who recorded it for her Mad Love album in 1980. The song reached No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Steinberg and Kelly, in addition to recording as the duo I-10 for Epic Records, were one of the top songwriting teams of the ‘80s and ‘90s, often writing signature songs for artists, including “Like A Virgin,” which remained at No. 1 for six weeks, the most of any of Madonna’s hits. Billboard ranked the song as Madonna’s biggest hit of her career in 2024.
After Kelly retired as a songwriter, Steinberg continued to write, often with Rick Nowels, including penning Dion’s “Falling Into You.” More recently, in the 2010s, Steinberg’s songs were cut by Nicole Scherzinger, Miranda Cosgrove and Demi Lovato, who took “Give Your Heart A Break,” (co-written with Josh Alexander) to No. 16 on the Hot 100 in 2012.
Steinberg took home a Grammy at the 39th annual Grammy Awards for album of the year for Dion’s Falling Into You, for which he co-wrote the title track.
At the Grammy Museum’s 2023 “The Power of Song: A Songwriters Hall of Fame Exhibit,” Steinberg was represented by a demo for “True Colors” recorded on a TDK SA 60 cassette and a note from Lauper that read, “Billy — Thanks for sending me and writing such a beautiful song. (heart) Cyndi.”
He is survived by his beloved wife, Trina; his sons, Ezra and Max; his sisters, Barbara and Mary; and his stepchildren, Raul and Carolina.
