Songwriter Robert Hazard dies at 59

Artist penned Cyndi Lauper's hit 'Girls'

By ASSOCIATED PRESS

Robert Hazard, who wrote the 1983 Cyndi Lauper hit "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," died Tuesday. He was 59.

Hazard's wife, Susan, said her husband died unexpectedly after surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.

Hazard, born Robert Rimato, led the band Robert Hazard and the Heroes, a fixture in Philadelphia clubs through the mid-1980s. He once wrote that his big break came in 1982 when music journalist Kurt Loder, in town to review a Rolling Stones concert, happened to stop into a bar where he Hazard performing. His song "Escalator of Life" became a hit soon after.

Recently, he has played country music with a band called the Hombres. His latest album, "Troubadour," was released in October. In recent years, Hazard and his wife ran an antique shop near their home in Old Forge, N.Y.