Dean Pitchford Footloose

Dean Pitchford (born July 29, 1951, Honolulu, Hawaii) wrote the screenplay for Footloose (1984) and the lyrics for all nine songs on its soundtrack. His unusual role — single-author screenwriter and single-author lyricist for a major studio musical — has no real equivalent in 1980s Hollywood.

Yale, then Fame

Pitchford attended Saint Louis High School in Honolulu and then Yale, where he gravitated to off-campus theatre work with the Wooster Square Revival, an experimental company. He moved to New York after graduation and worked as a Broadway performer through the 1970s — he was in the original cast of Pippin and Godspell. (wikipedia, deanpitchford)

His break as a lyricist came on Alan Parker's Fame (1980), where he collaborated with composer Michael Gore on three songs, including the title track. "Fame" — sung by Irene Cara — won the Academy Award for Best Original Song and the Golden Globe.

"That song earned Gore and Pitchford an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy nomination for Song of the Year (1981)." — Wikipedia, Wikipedia

Footloose was Pitchford's idea, his research, and his project

Pitchford read the wire-service story about Elmore City, Oklahoma — a town that had banned dancing for 82 years until its high-school senior class persuaded the school board to allow a prom in 1980 — and recognized it as a movie. He flew to Oklahoma City and spent a week in Elmore City interviewing the kids and their parents. The character of Ren is named for the senior class officers who organized the petition. See The Real Elmore City.

"Inspired by a 1980 news story about Elmore City, Oklahoma, a town which had finally lifted an 80-year-old ban on dancing, Pitchford wrote the screenplay for the motion picture Footloose (1984)." — Wikipedia, Wikipedia

The screenwriter-as-soundtrack-architect

What is unusual about Pitchford on Footloose is the dual authorship. He wrote the script and he wrote the lyrics for every song on the soundtrack. He brought in nine different composers and recording artists — Kenny Loggins, Eric Carmen, Jim Steinman, Sammy Hagar, Bonnie Tyler, John Cougar Mellencamp, Karla Bonoff, Mike Reno, Ann Wilson, Tom Snow — and supervised the lyric work himself, sometimes writing parts of a song before the artist was in the room. The title track was co-written with Loggins in a Lake Tahoe hotel room. (americansongwriter, songfacts)

"The two had limited time to write together. Pitchford traveled to Lake Tahoe, where Kenny had a few shows scheduled before he headed to Asia for some tour dates." — American Songwriter, American Songwriter

The result was a soundtrack album that hit number one on Billboard, six Hot 100 entries, two number-one singles, and global sales of around seventeen million copies. See The 1984 Soundtrack.

After Footloose

Pitchford continued to work as both a screenwriter and a lyricist, including the screenplay for Sing (1989), the musical adaptation of Footloose for Broadway in 1998 (book and lyrics; four Tony nominations), and the screenplay for the 2011 Footloose remake. As a songwriter he has written for Whitney Houston, Barbra Streisand, Cher, Hugh Jackman, LL Cool J, and Dolly Parton, with global record sales above seventy million. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2024. (wikipedia)

He has also published young-adult fiction; his novel The Big One-Oh (2007) was nominated for a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album for Children.