Richard Adler - Telegraph Largely self-trained, he composed several symphonic works, including Wilderness Suite, and The Lady Remembers, to celebrate the Statue of Liberty's centennial. He also wrote two scores for the Chicago City Ballet: Eight by Adler in 1984 and Chicago. His collaboration with Jerry Ross began in 1950, when the pair signed with the music publishing company owned by Frank Loesser. After writing Rags To Riches, a big hit for Tony Bennett in 1953, Adler and Ross wrote most of the numbers for a revue called John Murray Anderson's Almanac, featuring Hermione Gingold, Billy De Wolfe and Harry Belafonte. On Loesser's recommendation, they were hired to write the score for The Pajama Game the following year. Perhaps the show's most successful number was Hey, There, a US No 1 hit for Rosemary Clooney, and which reached No 4 in Britain in September 1955. Within a matter of weeks, other versions by Sammy Davis Jr, Lita Roza and Johnnie Ray also made it into the British charts. Sometimes Adler drew his ideas from unlikely sources. "I went to the bathroom one day, and when I got in there, I decided: 'I'm not leaving this room until I've written a song about something in the room,"" he recalled. There were certain things you can't write about in a bathroom. Then, all of a sudden, the radiator started clanging and hissing. The result was Steam Heat, the jazzy opening number to Act Two of The Pajama Game. In 1957 the show was successfully made into a film starring Doris Day. Although Adler and Ross songs sold millions of records, their collaboration ended abruptly with Ross's death, at 29, from lung disease in 1955. Thereafter Adler confined his output mainly to orchestral works and advertising jingles and also embarked on a producing career. As well as the birthday celebration for President Kennedy at Madison Square Garden in 1962, he produced and staged a show for the White House press corps to mark the visit of the then British prime minister, Harold Macmillan, the same year. Adler's Broadway productions included a play, The Sin of Pat Muldoon, and the musical Rex. He was a member of the Songwriter's Hall of Fame. His autobiography, You Gotta Have Heart, appeared in 1990. Richard Adler divorced his first wife, London-born Marion Hart, in 1958. His fifth wife, Susan Ivory, and three children survive him. A son predeceased him in 1984. Richard Adler, born August 3 1921, died June 21 2012