Stephen Bishop's career has been defined by several misconceptions. The song "It Might Be You," which he sang in the classic movie Tootsie is perhaps his most famous performance. Most people assume he wrote it. But the lyrics were written by the Oscar-winning team of Alan and Marilyn Bergman ("Windmills of Your Mind," "The Way We Were"), with music by jazz great Dave Grusin. "It was an assignment," Bishop said. "I'd been around for a while. The producers knew what I sounded like and they paid me quite a lot of money to do it. I remember they had me watch about four hours of the unedited movie, mostly with Kenny Loggins' music as a temp."

Bishop's singles reached the Top 40 three times in the '70s, from his first two Gold albums, with "Save It for a Rainy Day" and "On And On" from Careless and "Everybody Needs Love" from Bish. He's had tunes covered by Art Garfunkel, Barbra Streisand, Eric Clapton, The Four Tops, and Diane Schurr, among others. But his most successful song is the #1 hit, "Separate Lives," sung in the movie White Nights by Phil Collins and Marilyn Martin. Ironically, most people assume Collins, one of the hottest singer-songwriters of the era, wrote it.

Nevertheless, Bishop got to perform both songs at the prestigious Oscar ceremonies, "It Might Be You" in 1983 (wearing huge Elton John-type glasses) and "Separate Lives" in 1985.

"The first time, I pretty much had a nervous breakdown," Bishop recalled. "I made the mistake of telling people that I was going to do the Academy Awards and everybody went, 'Oh, are you really nervous?' And I said, yes. I said it so much that I got myself into a frenzy. I didn't sleep for more than four or five hours a night for several months beforehand. The worst thing would be to forget the lyrics in front of two billion human beings... and my third-grade teacher. But I was very lucky to have one of my favorite people ever introducing me and that was Richard Pryor. That was pretty cool.

The second time, with 'Separate Lives,' was supposed to be a duet with Melissa Manchester. At the last minute, they decided to just have me sing it on my own. The award was presented by Debbie Reynolds and Gene Kelly. I thought, This is amazing. This is fate. I'm supposed to get the award this time. But I lost it to Lionel Richie for 'Say You, Say Me,' from the same movie."

According to Bishop's calculations, dating back to his breakout performance of the title song in Animal House in 1978, he has either performed or written and performed songs for 14 different films, including Roadie, The China Syndrome, Summer Lovers, Micki & Maude, The Money Pit, All I Want For Christmas, and this year's Netflix item, Benji. The scene in Animal House where he gets his guitar bashed over his head by John Belushi went over so well that director John Landis cast him in several other cameo parts, the most wonderfully obscure being his role in Michael Jackson's epic music video "Thriller," directed by Landis. "Yeah, I'm in the scene where Michael and the girl are watching something scary on the screen," Bishop pointed out. "I'm sitting two seats over in a yellow shirt."

Making the most of his misconceptions, Bishop is now working on a documentary about "It Might Be You," which has become something of a national anthem in - where else - the Philippines.

"It's just revered over there," said Bishop. "Everybody knows the song, young and old. And everybody knows me. I've played there 11 times. It's really a fascinating place. I'm not sure when they caught on to the song, but by the '90s it was pretty well known. I get a lot of attention when I go there. So, this is a film that documents my last trip. It was just a crazy experience and it's all captured on film."

Perhaps the biggest misconception of all about "Separate Lives" was the reaction of the actress Karen Allen (Animal House, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Starman), whose breakup with Bishop inspired the song. "When I first wrote it, I felt like it was my angry song," he said. "And then I played it for her and she went, 'Oh, that's beautiful.'"