While many may not recognize him by his name alone, his songs are unmistakable. Throughout his four-decade spanning career, Leonard has produced several massive hits. His collaborations with Madonna<\/a> including “Live to Tell,” “Who’s That Girl” and “Like a Prayer<\/a>,” all hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. The songwriter is credited with over 20 top-five singles and has contributed to the sale of over 180 million albums.<\/p>\n Skylar Grey, singer and songwriter, and Patrick Leonard, songwriter and music producer, perform at the Bloomberg Next Big Thing Summit in Half Moon Bay, California, U.S., on Monday, June 17, 2013. David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)<\/p>\n Leonard worked closely with several legendary industry figures throughout his career, including Leonard Cohen,\u00a0Roger Waters\u00a0(of Pink Floyd),\u00a0Elton John<\/a>,\u00a0Rod Stewart<\/a> and\u00a0Bryan Ferry. Despite these high-profile collaborations, he remains most famous for his long-term creative partnership with ’80s pop icon Madonna.<\/p>\n The duo created over 20 songs together during her commercial peak in the late ’80s and early ’90s. His work was featured on landmark albums suck as True Blue (1986),\u00a0Like a Prayer (1989) and\u00a0Ray of Light (1998). His reputation as a consistent hit-maker during this era solidified his legacy as an industry-dominating songwriter.<\/p>\n Leonard has earner many notable accolades during his songwriting career, including three Grammy Award<\/a> nominations and two Golden Globe Awards. In 2017, he was inducted into the Goldmine Hall of Fame and in 2018 he was inducted into the RockGodz Hall of Fame for his lasting influence on the music industry.<\/p>\n Related: 1989 Hit Ranked \u2018Best Karaoke Song\u2019 of All Time<\/a><\/p>\n This story was originally published by Parade<\/a> on Mar 14, 2026, where it first appeared in the Entertainment<\/a> section. Add Parade as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patrick Leonard, the legendary ’80s songwriter credited with writing countless pop hits, turns 70 years old today. Born…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":542705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,268882,134,2264,8440,136,268881,268883],"class_list":["post-542704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-crystal-falls","tag-entertainment","tag-leonard-cohen","tag-michigan","tag-music","tag-patrick-leonard","tag-stephanie-mills"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=542704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/542704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/542705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=542704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=542704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=542704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Skylar](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/439151207db2314d03394b74f33ce075.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n