Lyricist ("Cabin in the Sky") and author, educated at the Richmond Academy of Arts and Sciences and Columbia University. For Broadway, he wrote lyrics for "Ballet Ballads", "Polonaise", and "Candide", sketches and lyrics for the revue "Pins and Needles", and book and lyrics for the 1954 New York Drama Critics award winning "The Golden Apple". Joining ASCAP in 1940, his chief musical collaborators
included Vernon Duke,
Earl Robinson,
Duke Ellington,
Jerome Moross,
Bronislau Kaper and
Douglas Moore.
Died four-and-a-half months before the Broadway premiere of "Candide",
for which he wrote some of the lyrics.
In 1955 he provided additional lyrics for Leonard Bernstein's Candide.
He became involved in music and theater, writing for the Varsity Show and joining the Philolexian Society. He did not graduate.
The New York Theatre Company produced Taking a Chance on Love - The Lyrics and Life of John LaTouche, A New Musical Revue ("The Bad Boy of Broadway Is Back") in 2000, with notes by Ned Rorem (recorded by Original Cast Records).
Latouche was a protégé of James Branch Cabell and friends with writers Gore Vidal and Jack Woodford.