Billy Steinberg

William Endfield Steinberg, the prolific American songwriter behind some of the biggest pop hits of the 1980s and beyond, passed away on February 16, 2026, in Los Angeles, California, after a battle with cancer. He was 75 years old. Born on February 26, 1950, in Palm Springs, California, Steinberg grew up in Fresno and later Palm Springs, where he worked in his fathers table grape business. His father, Lionel Steinberg, ran the David Freedman Company, the largest grape grower in the Coachella Valley. Steinberg attended Cate School in Carpinteria, California, and Bard College in New York. Steinberg achieved his greatest success in the 1980s with songwriting partner Tom Kelly. Together, they wrote or co-wrote an extraordinary string of number-one hits that defined the sound of a decade. Their masterworks include Like a Virgin by Madonna (1984), True Colors by Cyndi Lauper (1986), Eternal Flame by the Bangles (1989, co-written with Susanna Hoffs), So Emotional by Whitney Houston (1987), and Alone, originally by i-Ten and covered by Heart (1987). The Steinberg-Kelly partnership also produced I Drove All Night (recorded by Roy Orbison, Cyndi Lauper, and Celine Dion), I Touch Myself by Divinyls (1990), and Ill Stand by You by the Pretenders (1994). Their songs collectively sold hundreds of millions of records and became enduring anthems of popular culture. After Kelly retired from music in the 1990s, Steinberg continued collaborating with other songwriters and found success with new generations of artists. With Rick Nowels, he wrote Falling Into You for Celine Dion. With Josh Alexander, he penned Too Little Too Late for JoJo (2006) and Give Your Heart a Break for Demi Lovato (2012). Steinbergs career began when Linda Ronstadt heard his band Billy Thermal and recorded their song How Do I Make You for her 1980 album Mad Love. Pat Benatar also covered his work, recording Precious Time as a title track in 1981. Steinberg leaves behind a catalog of songs that have been heard billions of times worldwide. His gift for crafting lyrics that captured universal emotions of love, desire, and resilience made him one of the most important pop songwriters of the modern era.