He’s the legendary singer-songwriter who is making his debut as a coach on The Voice Australia in 2025, so you might be surprised to learn that Richard Marx is uncomfortable with celebrity.
“I never embraced celebrity. I never cultivated it. There are so many people who are really famous performers who pay so much attention to their image and reinventing their image – I never even invented an image, let alone reinvented an image,” Richard told Reuters Television in a candid 2009 interview.
“I think that I always, I didn’t want to go to that premiere, I didn’t want to go to that party that all the paparazzi were at. I just don’t have any interest in that whatsoever; it’s uncomfortable for me. It always has been.”
What is Richard Marx known for?
They’re surprising words, perhaps from a man whose hit songs made him the only solo artist to have their first seven singles soar into the top five of the Billboard singles chart. He’s also written or co-written a staggering 14 number one songs across four consecutive decades, a feat achieved by only a few artists – Michael Jackson being one.
It’s Richard’s ability to pivot that has helped him enjoy the career longevity that he has.
He started off singing jingles as a child for his father’s ad agency, including for a 1976 Peter Pan Peanut Butter TV commercial.
That was until superstar Lionel Richie stumbled across the young singer’s talent and gave him his big break.
“I had written a handful of songs; I’d made little demos of them on a cassette tape,” Richard told the New York Post in 2022.
“Somehow, they got into the hands of Lionel. Not only did he listen to it, but he saw that there was a phone number on the back of the cassette, and he called my parents’ number. Lionel f–king Richie takes the time to call some kid in Chicago and say, ‘You’re really talented. You should come out to LA.’ ”
Lionel snapped Richard up as a backing vocalist, and the rising star would go on to work with the likes of Madonna, Whitney Houston, and Cher before he launched his own self-titled album in 1987.
By then, Richard had fallen for Flashdance actress Cynthia Rhodes while working on the music for Staying Alive, a film in which she starred opposite John Travolta.
What was Richard Marx’s number one song?
Richard’s signature 1989 hit Right Here Waiting was inspired by the woman who would later become his wife.
“I’ve not seen Cynthia for, like, seven or eight weeks, and I know I’ve got another seven weeks to go, and I’m madly in love with her,” Richard recalled to the New York Post. “And I just wrote that song in 20 minutes.”
The song would end up topping the charts in several countries and was a global hit.
“I’m deeply grateful”
In an August 2019 Facebook post, Richard reflected on the 30th anniversary of the feat.
“Thirty years ago today “Right Here Waiting” hit #1 on the @billboard Hot 100 where it stayed for three weeks,” he shared. “I’m deeply grateful for this song coming through me, and even more grateful when I look out in the audience night after night, even now, and see and hear everyone singing along with me.”
It was to be just one of many hits for the star.
Richard would go on to co-write the 2003 song Dance With My Father with Luther Vandross.
The ballad, a tribute to Luther’s late father and inspired by childhood memories, was released as the title track and lead single from Luther’s final studio album.
The R&B singer recorded the song just days before suffering a stroke that ended his performing career. He would die just two years later, aged 54.
“I met Luther in the early ‘90s at an American Music Awards show backstage. I was a big fan of his, and he was really sweet to me. It was a little mutual admiration society backstage for a minute. And we exchanged phone numbers,” Richard later told Smooth Radio .
“You know how sometimes you just hit it off with somebody immediately? You just feel like, ‘Oh, this is a person I’m going to hang out with’? We started talking on the phone. We were both touring.”
“This is the most important song of my life”
Over time, the pair developed a deeper friendship, with Luther singing background vocals on some of Richard’s songs and Richard co-writing a single for a Christmas album of Luther’s.
“And then in 2003, he rang me up one day. He said: ‘I’ve got an idea for a song, and only you can write it for me. And it’s called ‘Dance with My Father’.’ All he had was the title,” Richard explained.
“He told me kind of what he wanted it to be about. I went off and wrote some music and sent it to him. He loved it. He had so many lyrics. My original melody had not a lot of notes. There were longer notes. To hear Luther’s voice hold a note was just heaven.
“So he said, ‘Look, I’ve got to just break these verses up a little bit, because I’ve got a lot to say. There are too many words.’
“And so he changed the verse melody a little bit, but it was, again, effortless. And he went into the studio and recorded it 10 days before he had the stroke that ultimately took him from us. It was the last song he ever recorded, and I think the last song he ever wrote.
“Luther really felt like ‘Dance with My Father‘ would be a hit,” Richard went on. “But more importantly, he said, ‘This is the most important song of my life. This is my ‘Piano Man‘. This is my signature song. This is what I’m going to sing for the rest of my life. This is how I’m going to be associated.”
What song did Richard Marx write for Celine Dion?
At the 2004 Grammy Awards, with Luther too ill to perform, the song was sung by Celine Dion, with Richard playing the piano. Celine Dion would later include her rendition of the song on her 2005 tribute album So Amazing: An All-Star Tribute to Luther Vandross.
“I obviously have bittersweet emotions about the whole thing. We won the Grammy for Song of the Year, and he lived to see that,” Richard said of Luther. “I would say not a week goes by where someone doesn’t mention that song to me, and how much they love it, and how much it means to them.
“And so I’m really grateful that we wrote the song together, and that it was so successful. But as long as it’s been, I miss him. He was one of my best friends. I miss him every day.”
How many Grammys does Richard Marx have?
That cherished Grammy award is the only one that Richard has won so far in his storied career, although he has been nominated a further four times.
What happened to Richard Marx and Cynthia Rhodes?
While Richard’s career was skyrocketing, his personal life was also flourishing. After four years of dating, in July 1989, Richard and Cynthia Rhodes married, with the pair welcoming three sons, Brandon, Luca,s and Jesse.
Cynthia’s most notable career role came in the 1987 hit Dirty Dancing, in which she played dance instructor Penny Johnson opposite Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey.
After the birth of her sons, Cynthia retreated from showbiz entirely to concentrate on family.
In April 2014, however, she and Richard announced their decision to divorce after 25 years of marriage.
“It has been a painful time,” Richard acknowledged to People in July that year, as people speculated whether his latest album, Beautiful Goodbye, was about the split.
“I have nothing but love and respect for my ex-wife, and I don’t really want to delve into that in songwriting so much. Not to say that I never will, but I didn’t feel like that’s where I wanted to write from. I wanted to write from a more positive, inspired, hopeful place,” he said.
He refused to be drawn on the reasons for the marriage split, saying simply: “I wouldn’t discuss that with even some of my close friends. It’s really nobody’s business.
“What I will say is that I had the great fortune and blessing to not only be married to Cynthia for all those years, but to just share her company. There’s not a finer human being,” he added. “I’m very grateful that we were together, had three amazing sons, and I can’t say enough about what an amazing person she is and how lucky I was to share that time with her.”
Who is Richard Marx’s partner?
After the split, Richard went on to find love with TV host and former weather presenter Daisy Fuentes, 58. The pair married in 2015.
“We’re so in tune with each other,” Richard told People in 2021. “I’m in love in the most freeing way I’ve ever experienced. It’s a beautiful thing.”
But when they first met, Richard admitted he was going through the “really tumultuous time” of his divorce.
“When I met Daisy, I was flailing a bit,” he told People. “I very quickly saw things in her that made me feel like, ‘That’s my person.’ But I was like, ‘Do I want to be in another relationship already?’ I had just become single for the first time in my life.”
While the pair initially split after six months, they later reconnected – first as friends and then more.
“We learned about each other as friends, and it only deepened our relationship so that when we started seeing each other again, we knew much more about each other,” Richard explained. “We were intrigued by each other.
“It took a while for everyone to feel comfortable meeting and getting to know each other, but my boys could see how happy I was,” Richard said of his adult kids.
“Pretty early on, one of my sons blew my mind when he raised a glass while we were having dinner and said, ‘I want to make a toast to Daisy, because I’ve never seen my father so happy.’ That’s a pretty heavy, powerful thing to do.”
What song did Richard Marx write for Keith Urban?
Today, as well as having a happy home life, Richard is still touring and performing.
His talents have evolved over time, with the star collaborating with Keith Urban on his hits Better Life, Everybody, and Long Hot Summer.
In a 2021 interview with Inlander, Richard reflected on the importance of embracing change when it comes to his career.
“Music is cyclical, and it moves on to the next generation, and the next decade is different; it should always change,” he told the publication.
“I remember watching careers cool off, and in some cases, they just disappeared. And in other cases, they just morphed into something of what I do.
“I still put out records, but I don’t ever have any grand delusions of having hit songs. That was my turn for 10 years straight, and then it was somebody else’s turn.
“It helps to have a healthy attitude about it,” he added. “And in my case, at the end of that 10-year stretch I immediately went into continuing to have hits, just not with me singing them. I focused on writing songs for other people and had this whole other 20 years of success that way.”
