Bacharach's daughter commits suicide

The only child of the songwriter Burt Bacharach and actress Angie Dickinson has committed suicide after a lifetime struggling with a form of autism, a spokeswoman for her parents said.

Nikki Bacharach, 40, suffered from Asperger's disorder. She killed herself at home in the Thousand Oaks area of Los Angeles. "She quietly and peacefully committed suicide to escape the ravages to her brain brought on by Asperger's," the statement said.

Born prematurely in 1966, Lea Nikki Bacharach was the only child of Burt Bacharach and Dickinson, who were married from 1965 to '81. It was the second marriage for both Bacharach, the Oscar-winning composer of "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head" and "What the World Needs Now is Love", and Dickinson, the star of the film Dressed to Kill and the TV show Police Woman.

Nikki Bacharach's father recounted his daughter's struggles in the song "Nikki".