Tom Jones has died. He wrote the book and songs for the Broadway musical The Fantasticks, which went on to become the longest-running musical in history. He turned 95. His son Michael says that he died of cancer on Friday at his home in Sharon, Connecticut.

Jones was born in Littlefield, Texas, on February 17, 1928. In 1945, he went to the University of Texas to study acting. That’s where he met his close friend Harvey Schmidt. Jones and Schmidt both joined the army during the Korean War after getting their master’s degrees.

Jones went to New York City after his military service to start a career in the theater. One of his first chances was to work with songwriter John Donald Robb. He and Robb also made the musical Joy Comes to Deadhorse, which was mostly based on Edmond Rostand’s play Les Romanesques, which came out in 1894. But the two stopped working together because they had different ideas about art, and Jones kept working on the show.

Later, Jones asked his friend Schmidt, who he had kept in touch with while they were both in the army, to help him finish what would become The Fantasticks.