Biography
Although Gloria Shayne composed numerous commercial pop successes, the 1962 holiday staple "Do You Hear What I Hear?"—created with her husband Noel Regney—remains the work for which she is most widely recognized. Born Gloria Adele Shain on September 4, 1923, in Brookline, Massachusetts, she completed a bachelor's degree at the Boston University School of Music and subsequently served as pianist, arranger, and background vocalist for songwriters such as Irving Berlin. By the late 1950s her own compositions had achieved substantial chart success, among them James Darren's "Goodbye Cruel World" and Mike Douglas' "The Men in My Little Girl's Life." Following her marriage to Regney—a classically trained pianist forced into Nazi military service during World War II who instead joined the French resistance—she concentrated primarily on lyrics while he supplied melodies. For "Do You Hear What I Hear?," however, the pair reversed those roles, crafting the peace-themed song amid the Cuban Missile Crisis. Bing Crosby's version first brought the track to wide audiences and moved more than a million copies; later interpretations by Robert Goulet, Gladys Knight & the Pips, and Destiny's Child secured its place as an annual favorite. The couple divorced in 1973, and Regney died in 2002. After a prolonged struggle with cancer, Shayne passed away at her Stamford, Connecticut residence on March 6, 2008.