With an acoustic guitar gifted to him by his grandmother, Steinberg wrote and performed songs around his university, Bard College in New York, where he studied literature and “discovered that songwriting was my first love and destiny”, according to an entry he wrote on his website in 2004. He dropped out due to anxiety attacks during his third year and returned to Palm Springs to receive mental health support, during which time he also worked on his father’s vineyard.
But Steinberg continued to write songs. In the late Seventies he formed a band called Billy Thermal, named after the town of Thermal, where his father’s vineyard was located They were inspired by contemporary rock bands such as Blondie, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and The Cars. Billy Thermal were signed by Planet Records in 1980 and, despite the fact the only album they recorded was never released, Pat Benatar covered two of its songs while Linda Ronstadt recorded their track How Do I Make You for her 1980 album Mad Love. Her version hit No.10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
In 1981, Billy Thermal broke up and Steinberg came to the conclusion that he was better a songwriter than performer. “In retrospect, it should have been obvious because I had stage fright and a limited singing voice,” he wrote. Fortunately, that same year he met guitarist and studio backup singer Tom Kelly at a party, which marked the beginning of an explosive collaboration that produced roughly 150 songs between 1981 and 1991.
Madonna’s Like a Virgin, which Steinberg wrote about his own experience of new love after a painful breakup, spent six weeks atop Billboard’s Hot 100 chart in late 1984 and early 1985. Steinberg and Kelly, who were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2011, went on to score four more No.1s during the 1980s, including True Colors, Heart’s Alone, So Emotional and The Bangles’ Eternal Flame (co-written with the band’s singer Susanna Hoffs).
NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 16: Inductees Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg perform onstage at the Songwriters Hall of Fame 42nd Annual Induction and Awards at The New York Marriott Marquis Hotel - Shubert Alley on June 16, 2011 in New York City. (Photo by Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Songwriters Hall of Fame)[Missing Credit]
Other hits included the Pretenders’ I’ll Stand by You, the Divinyls’ I Touch Myself, and I Drove All Night, which was recorded by both Lauper and Roy Orbison. Chrissie Hynde, of the Pretenders, was a favourite collaborator of Steinberg, who wrote five songs for the band’s 1994 album Last of the Independents.
In 1996, Steinberg and collaborator Rick Nowels won a Grammy for producing Falling Into You by Celine Dion, whose eponymous album won best album and best pop album. A later collaboration with Josh Alexander, with whom he wrote Give Your Heart a Break, resulted in a No. 16 Billboard hit in 2012 for Demi Lovato.
In the 2010s, Steinberg became interested in exploring his Jewish heritage and discovered through a genealogy site that he had Jewish family in Liverpool.
According to London-based interior designer Francesca Kletz, who said her great-grandfather’s brother was Steinberg’s grandfather, a little over a decade ago Steinberg reached out to her mother and cousin about their shared family roots. They continued to exchange messages over the years, with Kletz meeting Steinberg during a visit to Los Angeles in 2016, and Steinberg visiting the whole family in London in 2019.
“When I met him in California he told me how he’d run into Larry David at shul for Yom Kippur,” Kletz recalled. “And he played me one of his songs, I Touch Myself, on the guitar, which was amazing because that was my favourite song growing up.”
Kletz added that Steinberg was “just how you’d imagine a creative from California in the Seventies: very cool, laid-back, great sense of humour”. She also referenced his impressive collection of beads, which he amassed over 30 years.
Steinberg is survived by his wife, Trina McKillen Steinberg, sons Ezra and Max, two stepchildren, and two sisters.
Steinberg’s family described him as a “visionary lyricist, devoted husband, loving father, and one of the most influential songwriters of his era”.
ELIANA JORDAN
Billy Steinberg: born February 26, 1950. Died February 16, 2026.
