
He found early success as a lyricist with songs such as “Ricochet,” recorded by Teresa Brewer in 1953, and beginning in the late 1950s collaborated with composer Moose Charlap on a pair of short-lived Broadway musicals: “Whoop-Up,” a comedy set near an Indian reservation in Montana, and “The Conquering Hero,” which featured a book by “M*A*S*H” creator Larry Gelbart, based on the Preston Sturges film farce “Hail the Conquering Hero.”
Source: latimes.com – Los Angeles Times