Neil Sedaka, pop singer and hitmaker, has died at the age of 86. Neil Sedaka

Neil Sedaka, the singer-songwriter behind Breaking Up Is Hard, Oh! Carole, Calendar Girl and Bad Blood, as well as numerous hits by other artists, including Stupid Cupid and Love Will Keep Us Together, has died at the age of 86.

An actor confirmed his death to Variety on Friday, hours after he was taken to a hospital in Los Angeles. The cause of death was not mentioned.

“Our family is devastated by the sudden death of our beloved husband, father and grandfather, Neil Sedacca,” a statement from the Sedacca family said. “A true rock and roll legend, an inspiration to millions, but more importantly, at least to those of us who were lucky enough to know him, a remarkable human being who will be sorely missed.”

Born in 1939, Sedaka was a child piano prodigy: he was nine when he won a scholarship to the Juilliard School in New York. “Music is a big part of me: My parents told me that when I was a kid, I wouldn’t eat unless the radio was playing music,” he told The Guardian in 2012.

He initially studied to be a pianist, before realizing his talent for singing and writing pop music. At the age of 13, he befriended his 16-year-old neighbor Howard Greenfield, and they began writing songs together, the beginning of a songwriting partnership that would last more than a decade. Sedaka was briefly invited to play for a place at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow in 1956, before his invitation was rescinded because “they heard my name was associated with writing American rock and roll.”

Sedaka became a teen idol in the pre-rock and roll era of pop songwriting, producing hits like 1959’s Oh! Carol and the Calendar Girl and Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen: “When we ran out of lyrics, we used doo-by-doo,” he once joked about that time. He was one of many musicians who visited the Brill Building, a songwriting center in Manhattan that also nurtured the early careers of Paul Simon, Burt Bacharach and Carole King — whom Sedaka dated in high school.

Between 1959 and 1963, Sedaka sold more than 25 million records, and was nominated for his first Grammy Award in 1962. But the arrival of the British Invasion led by the Beatles nearly ended his career. He once said: “Between 1963 and 1975, I worked very little. The Beatles came to New York and changed the music – all the solo singers were out of work.”

Sedaka was a major influence on Elton John, who was briefly signed to his Rocket label in the 1970s. Aside from his own songs, Sedaka wrote for several others, including Connie Francis’ 1958 hit “Stupid Cupid” and Captain and Tennille’s “Love Will Keep Us Together.” In 1973, he collaborated with ABBA to write the English lyrics to their hit song Ring Ring, and has written songs for Rosemary Clooney, Patsy Cline, Engelbert Humperdinck, the Carpenters, and Cher.

Sedaka has maintained a six-decade career through touring and performing. Of fame, he told The Guardian in 2012: “You have to give up your privacy. But the good thing is that you can get a table in a restaurant or a seat in the theatre.”