Although he had begun to achieve success in the 1950s by penning lyrics for Andy Williams’s US top 10 hit Canadian Sunset (1956), it was during the 60s and 70s that Norman Gimbel became a stellar name in the music industry. A turning point arrived in 1963 when the music publisher Lou Levy introduced Gimbel, who has died aged 91, to a group of Brazilian composers, one of whom was Antônio Carlos Jobim.

Jobim had written the bossa nova song Garota de Ipanema with the lyricist Vinicius de Moraes for a musical called Blimp. But it was when Gimbel wrote his English version of the original Portuguese lyrics and the song became The Girl from Ipanema (1964) that a phenomenon was born.

With vocals by Astrud Gilberto and saxophone by Stan Getz, not only was the song a global hit single, reaching No 5 in the US and No 29 in the UK, it became the signature tune of the bossa nova boom, taking the slinky Brazilian fusion of samba and jazz around the world. The song also became a standard, with only the Beatles’ Yesterday having been recorded more often.

In 1973 Gimbel enjoyed another huge success with the lyrics for Roberta Flack’s version of Killing Me Softly With His Song, which he had written with his regular collaborator Charles Fox (they were responsible for more than 150 songs together over 30 years). A US chart-topper and a No 6 hit in Britain, it brought Gimbel and Fox a Grammy Award for song of the year, and became another much-covered favourite. In 1996 the Fugees’ version topped the British charts.

Gimbel and Fox scored another top 10 hit in 1973 with I Got a Name, performed by Jim Croce (who was killed in an air crash shortly before the single was released) and used as the theme of the film of the same year, The Last American Hero.

Fox said of Gimbel: “His words cut to the heart of every situation he was working toward. His words were beautiful, sensitive. He never used an extra word in expressing his feelings or describing the human condition.”

Norman was born in Brooklyn, New York. His father, Morris Gimbel, a businessman, and his mother Lottie (nee Nass), were Austrian Jewish immigrants. He attended Baruch College and Columbia University, both in New York, and after taking his first music industry job with the music publisher David Blum won a contract as a lyricist with Edwin H Morris Music.

In 1953 he wrote the lyrics for the song Ricochet, which was a modest hit for Teresa Brewer, and a year later he came up with the words for the Al Hoffman composition A Whale of a Tale, sung by Kirk Douglas in the film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954). Dean Martin’s recording of Sway, a Mexican song by Luis Demetrio for which Gimbel wrote English lyrics, reached No 6 in the UK in 1954.

Frank Loesser, the composer of, among other things, Guys and Dolls, then signed Gimbel to his music company and mentored him for three years. It was through Loesser that Gimbel met the composer Morris “Moose” Charlap, with whom he wrote the Broadway musicals Whoop-Up and The Conquering Hero (the latter featuring a book by Larry Gelbart, later the creator of the TV series M*A*S*H).

Gimbel enjoyed continued success as a writer for film and television. He wrote English lyrics to Michel Legrand’s compositions for the musical The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964), helping to create songs such as Watch What Happens and I Will Wait for You. After moving to Hollywood in 1967 he worked with composers including Lalo Schifrin, Maurice Jarre, Burt Bacharach, Quincy Jones and Elmer Bernstein.

With Fox he wrote the words for themes for many successful TV series, including Happy Days, its spin-off Laverne and Shirley – whose theme song Making Our Dreams Come True was a US top 30 hit for Cyndi Grecco in 1976 – Paper Chase, The Love Boat, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and Wonder Woman.

The pair won Oscar nominations for Richard’s Window, sung by Olivia Newton-John in the film The Other Side of the Mountain (1975), and Ready to Take a Chance Again, which Barry Manilow recorded for Foul Play, a 1978 movie. In 1980 Gimbel and his co-writer David Shire won an Oscar for best original song for It Goes Like It Goes, sung by Jennifer Warnes in the 1979 film Norma Rae. He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1984.

Gimbel’s marriages to Elinor Rowley and Victoria Carver both ended in divorce. He is survived by his four children, Tony, Nelly, Peter and Hannah.

• Norman Gimbel, lyricist, born 16 November 1927; died 19 December 2018