more than $50 million for famine relief, and won
three Grammy Awards, including Song of the Year,
Record of the Year, and Best Pop Performance by a
Duo or a Group. That same year, Richie composed
and recorded the ballad “Say You, Say Me” for the
movie White Nights, starring Gregory Hines and
Mikhail Baryshnikov. The song won Richie an Acad-
emy Award for Best Original Song. His third album,
Dancing on the Ceiling(1986), proved just as popular
as his others and included such well-known songs as
“Dancing on the Ceiling” and “Ballerina Girl.” In
1987, the singer wrote and recorded the song “Deep
River Woman” with the country band Alabama.
Impact During the 1980’s, Lionel Richie’s name
became synonymous with the romantic ballad. His
songwriting and singing talents led to the recording
of numerous award-winning songs. From 1977 to
1985, the popular singer had a song reach number
one on the pop charts each year, making him the
only performer in music history to do so consecu-
tively for nine years. In total, he won three Grammy
Awards, six American Music Awards, one People’s
Choice Award, and one Academy Award. Richie en-
joyed phenomenal success as a performer in the
1980’s and his romantic lyrics defined romance for a
generation of people.
Further Reading
Nathan, David.Lionel Richie: An Illustrated Biography.
New York: McGraw-Hill, 1985.
Richie, Lionel.Lionel Richie Anthology. Milwaukee,
Wis.: Hal Leonard, 2004.
Bernadette Zbicki Heiney
See also Academy Awards; African Americans;
Jackson, Michael; Music; Pop music; Shields, Brooke;
Springsteen, Bruce; USA for Africa.
Richler, Mordecai
Identification Canadian author
Born January 27, 1931; Montreal, Quebec
Died July 3, 2001; Montreal, Quebec
Richler wrote two acclaimed novels and served as a critic
of Canadian culture and politics, particularly within
Quebec.
During the 1980’s, Mordecai Richler published two
well-received novels,Joshua Then and Now(1980)
andSolomon Gursky Was Here(1989), as well as the
popular children’s bookJacob Two-Two and the Dino-
saur(1987) and the book for the failed musical adap-
tation of his earlier novelThe Apprenticeship of Duddy
Kravitz(1959).Joshua Then and Nowwas a modest
success, but it wasSolomon Gursky Was Here, released
nine years later, that had the greater literary impact.
The picaresque novel about an alcoholic Rhodes
scholar who spends his life chasing down leads re-
lated to Solomon Gursky, the deceased middle
brother of a trio of bootleggers, is considered to be
one of Richler’s best.
While Richler was popular with Americans—
Morton Ritts ofMaclean’snoted that he was “the one
to whom editors ofThe New York TimesandThe Atlan-
ticturn when they want a Canadian perspective on
this country”—some Canadians took offense at that
perspective. After a September 29, 1985,New York
Timessports piece on Wayne Gretzky in which
Richler described Edmonton in an unflattering light,
columnists and city dwellers cried foul, with Ca-
nadian publisher Mel Hurtig complaining that
“Richler now makes his living knocking Canada.”
Perhaps this sentiment was felt most in Richler’s na-
tive Quebec, where he frequently commented on
the Parti Québécois and strained English-French re-
lations in the province. In the essay “Language (and
Other) Problems” published inHome Sweet Home
(1984), Richler critiqued the province’s Charter of
the French Language (Bill 101), noting that the gov-
ernment’s zealous attempts to eradicate the English
language from any signage—going so far as to con-
fiscate fifteen thousand Dunkin’ Donuts bags—
made Quebec a laughingstock internationally and
threatened to destroy Montreal’s unique cultural
balance. In a summary of the 1980’s he wrote for
Maclean’s, Richler decried the underfunded hospi-
tals and universities in Quebec and voiced his dis-
pleasure over the government’s concerns over bilin-
gual signage: “Soon otherwise grown men will be out
measuring the size of English letters on indoor com-
mercial signs, crying perfidy if they measure a tad
over half-size.” Richler’s voice in the English-French
debate in Canada increased in the following decade.Impact Despite his literary achievements in the de-
cade, for many Richler is remembered in the 1980’s
for his role as the critical voice of Canada for Ameri-
can and Canadian publications such asThe New York
Times,GQ,Newsweek,Esquire, andMaclean’s. Many of828 Richler, Mordecai The Eighties in America