Adam Schlesinger, the bassist-songwriter from the rock band Fountains of Wayne and a music producer and composer on “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” has died due to complications from the coronavirus. He was 52.
Schlesinger had been hospitalized due to COVID-19 for the past week and was on a ventilator, TheWrap reported on Tuesday. The Fountains of Wayne attorney, through their manager Crush Music, confirmed Schlesinger’s death to TheWrap on Wednesday.
Schlesinger earned three Emmy Awards for his work writing songs for “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” and for the 2011 and 2012 Tony Awards broadcasts. He won a Grammy Award for the 2008 comedy album “A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!”
In 1996, he also earned an Oscar nomination for co-writing the title song to Tom Hanks’ movie “That Thing You Do!” as well as a Tony nomination for the score to the 2008 Broadway musical version of John Waters’ “Cry-Baby.”
But he was best known for his work with the quirky late-’90s rock band Fountains of Wayne, which he formed with fellow Williams College graduate Chris Collingwood in 1995, which was inspired by bands like The Kinks, Big Star and The Cars.
The band scored its biggest hit with the 2003 single “Stacy’s Mom,” which also was famous for a racy music video starring the supermodel Rachel Hunter. The song hit No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
He had also been at work on a stage musical version of the Fran Drescher ’90s sitcom “The Nanny,” collaborating with “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” creator Rachel Bloom. He and Bloom together on “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend,” a cult favorite on The CW from 2015-19 that wove Broadway-style parody songs into the rom-com storyline.
Some of his other credits included songs for “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “Damsels in Distress,” “Music & Lyrics” and “Crank Yankers.”