Biography
Gary LeMel earned greater renown as a music-industry executive than as a performer. He launched his career in entertainment as vice president of Jerry Weintraub’s Management III before taking a position at First Artists Music, where Warner Bros. recruited him to oversee the scores for Barbra Streisand’s pictures A Star Is Born and The Main Event; the former film’s soundtrack alone moved more than six million units within the United States. Following a term as senior VP at Neil Bogart’s Boardwalk Company, he joined Columbia Pictures in 1983 and guided the music for such commercial successes as The Big Chill, Ghostbusters, Against All Odds, and St. Elmo’s Fire. Three years afterward he returned to Warner Bros., steadily advancing to the presidency of its music division and again shaping hit-driven film albums that included The Bodyguard, Singles, and Space Jam. In parallel, LeMel pursued occasional work as a jazz vocalist, issuing the albums Romancing the Screen in 1994 and the Bobby Darin tribute Moonlighting in 1999. Lost In Your Arms reached stores in summer 2001.