Neil Sedaka Passes Away at 86: a Look Back at His Extraordinary Life, Marriage, and Hits

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The anchor of Sedaka's life was not a shifting showbiz romance, but a resilient marital partnership that began at an upstate New York resort. In 1958, while working as a summer tummler and lounge player at the Esther Manor hotel in the Catskills, Sedaka met Leba Strassberg, the daughter of the resort's owners. The two began dating as Sedaka's pop star status was exploding worldwide.

They married on September 11, 1962. When the British Invasion derailed his recording career in 1964, it was Leba who stepped in to rescue his commercial standing. Recognizing that American labels had written him off as an early-rock relic, she encouraged him to move the family to England in the early 1970s, where grassroots audiences still revered classic American songwriting. Leba officially took over his day-to-day management, booking dates across northern English workingmen's clubs and orchestrating meetings with foreign promoters.

The couple raised two children, Dara and Marc. Dara pursued music, recording the hit duet "Should've Never Let You Go" with her father in 1980, which reached number 19 on the Billboard Hot 100. Marc pursued a successful career as an author and screenwriter in Los Angeles. Through sixty-three years of marriage, Leba managed the business operations of Neil Sedaka Music, ensuring that her husband maintained ownership of his publishing rights, a rare victory for artists of his generation.