Background
Creatore was born in New York City in 1921.
Creatore was born in New York City in 1921.
From a musical family, Creatore began his career as a writer In 1957, they bought into Roulette Records where they both wrote songs for various artists such as Valerie Carr and produced major hits for Jimmie Rodgers including "Honeycomb" (Billboard # 1) and "Kisses Sweeter Than Wine" (Billboard # 3), and "Oh-Oh, I"m Falling in Love Again" and "Secretly". Two years later, Creatore and Peretti signed a deal with Radio Corporation of America Victor where they produced Perry Como.
In addition, they produced Sam Cooke and Ray Peterson and wrote English lyrics for the song "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" (with the original bulk of the song written by Solomon Linda), producing the hit for The Tokens.
With George David Weiss they co-wrote "Can"t Help Falling in Love" for Elvis Presley. Peretti and Creatore also wrote the Presley film theme "Wild in the Country".
He and Peretti left Radio Corporation of America in 1964 to join Weiss in writing a musical about the American Civil War. Titled Maggie Flynn (starring Shirley Jones) it briefly ran on Broadway in 1968.
In the 1970s, Creatore and Peretti owned part of Avco Records and then established H&L Records which they operated until retiring at the end of the decade.
Among their successes were recordings by The Stylistics and The Softones. Creatore died at the age of 93 from complications of pneumonia on December 13, 2015, in Boca Raton, Florida.