Stephen Sondheim, the legendary composer and lyricist for multiple iconic Broadway shows who was also an Academy Award-winning songwriter, has died at age 91. Sondheim was regarded as one of the greatest composers and lyricists of the 20th Century and he received a staggering amount of awards over his lifetime, including 9 Tony Awards, 8 Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, a Kennedy Center Honor, a Pulitzer Prize and a 2015 Presidential Medal of Freedom.

As a child, Sondheim befriended James Hammerstein, son of Oscar Hammerstein II, regarded as one of the greatest lyricists in the history of musical theater, who most famously worked with composer Richard Rodgers. When Sondheim was 15, he wrote his first musical, By George, based on the private Quaker preparatory school he attended, and asked Hammerstein to evaluate it as if he didn't know who wrote it. Hammerstein agreed and told Sondheim that it was the most terrible musical he had ever heard, but also that if he was willing, the famed lyricist would teach him why it was terrible. The teenaged Sondheim agreed and Hammerstein began teaching him about musical theater, including "assigning" him four musicals that he wanted to see Sondheim write.

Sondheim finished his fourth of these musicals when he was 22, and while none of them were ever staged, his development as a composer meant that in 1953 he was hired by theater producer Lemuel Ayers to write three shows for an upcoming Broadway musical, Saturday Night. Sadly, Ayers passed away and the show didn't open until an Off-Broadway run nearly 50 years later, but the show led to Sondheim's big break, as writer Arthur Laurents had seen some of the auditions for the show. He was impressed enough by Sondheim's lyrics that he got the young man an audition to write the lyrics for composer Leonard Bernstein's new modern day musical adaptation of Romeo & Juliet. Sondheim got the gig and in 1957, West Side Story opened and became an absolute blockbuster, and Sondheim became a hit Broadway lyricist.

Laurents and West Side Story director Jerome Robbins next enlisted Sondheim for a musical adaptation of Gypsy Rose Lee's memoirs with Sondheim as the lyricist and Jule Styne doing the music. The resulting show, Gypsy, was a big hit when it opened in 1959.

In 1962, the first musical featuring music and lyrics by Sondheim was released, but although the show, a farce set in Roman times called A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, won the Tony Award for Best Musical, Sondheim wasn't even nominated for his music and lyrics. He then hit a bit of a dry spell, with his 1964 musical Anyone Can Whistle flopping, as did 1964's Do I Hear a Waltz?, which Sondehim only wrote the lyrics for. He worked with Richard Rodgers, as Hammerstein had passed away in 1960 and Rodgers' daughter, Mary (with whom Sondheim was close friends) asked Sondheim to fill in for his mentor on the show. After that project, Sondheim vowed to never work on a musical again where he wasn't providing both music and lyrics.

In 1970, Sondheim started working with theater producer and director, Hal Prince, for the first time since Forum in 1962. Paired with Prince, Sondheim was about to establish himself as a Broadway legend.

The hit musical Company, based on a series of short plays about modern romance by actor George Furth, was released in 1970. With music and lyrics by Sondheim and direction by Prince, Company was a media sensation and Sondheim won his first two Tony Awards for Best Music and Best Lyrics, two categories which were combined after that award season, as well as his first Grammy Award for the cast album. Follies was released in 1971 and was another critical success, with Sondheim repeating as the winner of Best Music and Lyrics. The year 1973 saw the release of A Little Night Music, which features perhaps Sondheim's most famous song, "Send in the Clowns," which became a surprise pop hit for both Judy Collins and Frank Sinatra. Sondheim again won the Tony Award for Best Music and Lyrics.

Sondheim's avant-garde Pacific Overtures, about the Westernization of Tokyo in 19th Century Japan, done Kabuki-style with an all-Asian cast, was less of a success, but still netted another nomination for Best Music and Lyrics. His 1979 musical, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, was a return to commercial success and another win for Best Music and Lyrics. The Sondheim/Prince partnership ended in 1981 with the flop Merrily We Roll Along, which threw Sondheim for a loop and nearly caused him to quit working in musical theater.

However, after seeing James Lapine's 1981 play, Twelve Dreams, Sondheim's interest in musical theater was reinvigorated and he and Lapine collaborated on 1984's Sunday in the Park With George, which won the Pulitzer Prize. Sondheim's next two collaborations with Lapine, 1987's Into the Woods and 1994's Passion, both won Sondheim Tony Awards for Best Music and Lyrics. Sondheim also worked on an acclaimed Off-Broadway musical, Assassins, that came out in 1990.

Sondheim contributed a few songs to Warren Beatty's 1990 film, Dick Tracy, including "Sooner or Later," performed by Madonna in the film, which won the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Oddly enough, Sondheim never won an Emmy, leaving him shy of an EGOT despite winning so many awards over the years. He never stopped writing music and lyrics, but naturally, the last few decades of his life were mostly spent consulting on various theater productions of his shows, as well as the occasional blockbuster movie adaptation of his shows, like the 2007 hit film, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and 2014's hit Disney version of Into the Woods.

Sondheim has theaters named after him in both the West End of London and on Broadway in New York, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2015, but there likely are not enough honors in the world to properly credit this artistic legend.