Herbert Kretzmer

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Herbert Kretzmer (born October 5, 1925) is an English songwriter and journalist, best known for the English lyrics of the hit musical Les Misérables.

Kretzmer was born in Kroonstad, Orange Free State, South Africa. He moved to Europe after World War II, living in Paris for a time before settling in London in 1954.

He was the Daily Express's drama critic for 18 years, and TV critic for the Daily Mail for even longer.

During the early 1960s he contributed regular songs to the satirical television series That Was The Week That Was.

He wrote the comic song "Goodness Gracious Me", which was a hit for Peter Sellers and Sophia Loren, and which won him an Ivor Novello Award.

In the 1980s, he was invited by producer Cameron Mackintosh to translate the lyrics for the French musical Les Misérables into English. The English version of the show that he created became one of the most successful musicals in Britain, the United States, and several other countries. The English Language Broadway cast album of the musical won a Grammy Award in 1988.