Born and raised in Hawaii and graduated from Yale University, Dean Pitchford performed off- and on-Broadway (Godspell, Pippin) before turning to songwriting, screenwriting, and directing. Dean was nominated for four Academy Awards (winning the 1981 Best Song Oscar for Fame), three Golden Globes (winning for Fame), eight Grammys, and two Tonys; his songs - recorded by such artists as Barbra Streisand, Whitney Houston, Cher, Peter Allen, LL Cool J, Kenny Loggins, Hugh Jackman, Dolly Parton, Bette Middler, and Martina McBride - have sold over 70 million records. The musical stage adaptation (w/ Walter Bobbie) of his original screenplay for Footloose ran for more than seven hundred performances on Broadway and is now seen all over the world. Dean also provided the lyrics for Carre: The Musical, which was first produced in 1988 by the Royal Shakespeare Company - first in England and then on Broadway - and was then revived in 2012 by MCC Theater. Major productions have recently been seen in London (Southwark Playhouse) and Los Angeles (The Los Angeles Theatre). Dean's middle-grade novels, The Big One-Oh and Captain Nobody, are published by Putnam/Penguin; his performances of their audiobook recordings (Listening Library/Random House) were both nominated for Grammys. His third novel, Nickel Bay Nick, was published to accclaim in 2013, and Dean voiced that audiobook for Audible.com