Dorothy Veronica "Dory" Previn (née Langan; October 22, 1925 – February 14, 2012) was an American lyricist, singer-songwriter and poet.

Previn's lyrics from this period are characterized by their originality, irony and honesty in dealing with her troubled personal life as well as more generally about relationships, sexuality, religion and psychology.

His mental health deteriorated after the birth of a second daughter, culminating in a paranoid episode in which he boarded the family up in their home and held them at gunpoint for several months.

[citation needed] After high school, Previn attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts for a year before financial difficulties forced her to leave.

They also wrote songs recorded by Rosemary Clooney, Chris Connor, Vic Damone, Bobby Darin, Sammy Davis Jr., Doris Day, Eileen Farrell, Jack Jones, Marilyn Maye, Carmen McRae, Matt Monro, Leontyne Price, Nancy Wilson, and Monica Zetterlund.

[6] During this period, Dory Previn wrote lyrics with other film composers for the movies Tall Story, Goodbye Again and Harper.

By the mid-1960s, André Previn had become a classical music conductor, touring worldwide, but Dory's fear of air travel kept her from joining him.

In 1965 she suffered a psychiatric breakdown for which she was briefly hospitalized, but continued to write songs with André, including You're Gonna Hear from Me, recorded by Frank Sinatra, and began to use the name Dory Previn professionally.

The soundtrack album spent six months on the charts, and Dionne Warwick had a pop hit with her version of the theme song.

[7] The next year, she won a third Oscar nomination for "Come Saturday Morning", with music by Fred Karlin, from the movie The Sterile Cuckoo.

"[12] In 1970, Previn signed as a solo artist with the Mediarts company founded by Alan Livingston and Nik Venet, and recorded her first album for 12 years, On My Way to Where.

"Mister Whisper" examines episodes of psychosis from within the confines of a psychiatric hospital, while "Beware of Young Girls" is a scathing attack on Mia Farrow and her motives for befriending the Previns.

Previn teamed up with producer Zev Buffman to stage it on Broadway, but the previews were poor and the show was canceled before it opened.

"A Stone for Bessie Smith" is about the premature death of singer Janis Joplin, while "Doppelgänger" examines the latent savagery of humanity.

[2] She also gave some public performances that year, including a concert in New York on April 18, 1973, that was recorded and released as a double LP, Live at Carnegie Hall, which featured in a book of the 200 best rock albums.

She then switched to Warner Bros. Records, and released the album Dory Previn in 1974, followed by We're Children of Coincidence and Harpo Marx in 1976.

Still unable to overcome her fear of flying, she crossed the ocean on the QE2 to tour in Europe in the late 1970s, and in 1980 performed in a musical revue of her songs, Children Of Coincidence, in Dublin.

[citation needed] Previn died, aged 86, on February 14, 2012, at her farm in Southfield, Massachusetts, where she lived with her husband, Joby Baker.