BOB CREWE (d: 2014) was an American songwriter, dancer, singer, manager, record producer and fine artist born on this date. He was known for producing, and co-writing with Bob Gaudio, a string of Top 10 singles for The Four Seasons.

As a songwriter, his most successful songs included Silhouettes (co-written with Frank Slay); Big Girls Don’t Cry, Walk Like A Man, Rag Doll, Silence is Golden, Can’t Take My Eyes off of You and Bye Bye Baby” (all co-written with Gaudio); “Let’s Hang On!” (written with Sandy Linzer and Denny Randell); and Lady Marmalade (both co-written with Kenny Nolan). He was also known for his hit recordings with The Rays. Diane Renay, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, Freddy Cannon, Lesley Gore, Oliver, Michael Jackson, Bobby Darin, Roberta Flack, Peabo Bryson, Patti Labelle and his The Bob Crewe Generation.

Crewe was portrayed as “overtly gay” in “Jersey Boys,” but his brother Dan Crewe told The New York Times he was “discreet” about his sexuality, particularly during the time he was working with the Four Seasons. “Whenever he met someone, he would go into what I always called his John Wayne mode, this extreme machismo,” he told The New York Times. He was then asked if any of the songs his brother wrote were based on a romance with another man and he demurred, “Bob was just a good story teller.” Yeah…stories about his boyfriends, changed into stories about girlfriends. Personally, I’ll never hear “Walk Like A Man” or “You’re Just Too Good To Be True” in quite the same way again.

From April 2014 until his death, Crewe resided in a Scarborough, Maine nursing home. His Bob Crewe Foundation donated $3 million to the Maine College of Art in April 2014. Crewe died in the nursing home on September 11, 2014, at the age of 83