Howard Ashman
Howard Elliott Ashman (May 17, 1950 – March 14, 1991) was an American playwright, lyricist and stage director.[1] He is most widely known for his work on feature films for Walt Disney Animation Studios, for which Ashman wrote the lyrics and Alan Menken composed the music.[2] Ashman has been credited as being a main driving force behind the Disney Renaissance.[3][4][5][6] His work included songs for Little Shop of Horrors, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin. Tim Rice took over to write the rest of the songs for the latter film after Ashman's death in 1991.
Howard Ashman
March 14, 1991 (aged 40)
Ohev Shalom Memorial Park, Reisterstown, Maryland, U.S.
- Playwright
- lyricist
- stage director
1977–1991
Stuart White (1969–1980, 1983)
Bill Lauch (1984–1991)
2 Academy Awards (1989, 1991)
5 Grammy Awards (1991, 1993, 1994)
Early life and education[edit]
Ashman was born in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Shirley Thelma (née Glass) and Raymond Albert Ashman, an ice cream cone manufacturer.[7] His family was Jewish.[8][9] He started his theater experiences with the Children's Theater Association (CTA), playing roles such as Peter Pan.[10] Ashman first studied at Boston University and Goddard College (with a stop at Tufts University's Summer Theater) and then went on to earn a master's degree in Fine Arts at Indiana University in 1974.[11]
Career[edit]
After graduating from Indiana University in 1974, Ashman moved to New York and worked as an editor at Grosset & Dunlap. His first two plays, Cause Maggie's Afraid of the Dark and Dreamstuff, were met with mixed reviews. Ashman's play The Confirmation was produced in 1977 at Princeton's McCarter Theater and starred Herschel Bernardi. In 1977, he became the artistic director of the WPA Theater in New York. Ashman met future collaborator Alan Menken at the BMI Workshop, where he was classmates with Maury Yeston and Ed Kleban, among others. He first worked with Menken on the 1979 musical Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, adapted from Vonnegut's novel of the same name.[2] They also collaborated on Little Shop of Horrors with Ashman as director, lyricist, and librettist, winning the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics and receiving a Grammy Award nomination.[12] Ashman also directed the workshop of Nine by Yeston at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, and after asking why Guido's wife stays with him after she knows he has not been faithful, inspired Yeston to write "My Husband Makes Movies".[13]
Ashman was director, lyricist, and book writer for the 1986 Broadway musical Smile (music by Marvin Hamlisch). This musical was not well received[14] and closed with only 48 performances.[2] Also in 1986, Ashman wrote the screenplay for the Frank Oz–directed film adaptation of his musical Little Shop of Horrors, as well as contributing the lyrics for two new songs, "Some Fun Now" and "Mean Green Mother from Outer Space", the latter of which received an Academy Award nomination.
In 1986, Ashman was brought in to write lyrics for a song in Walt Disney Animation Studios' Oliver & Company. He then also worked with Tina Turner on a script[15] which never came to fruition.[16] While there, Ashman was offered several works which had been on the back burner and was told about another project that Disney had been working on for a couple years. The film was The Little Mermaid, Disney's first fairy tale in 30 years. Ashman, along with Menken, wrote all of the songs for the film. Ashman became a driving force during the early years of the "Disney Renaissance". He would hold story meetings, and said the animation and musical styles were made for each other, which is why Disney needed to continue making musical movies.[2] Ashman also made strong choices in casting actors with strong musical theater and acting backgrounds. The Little Mermaid was released in November 1989 and it was an enormous success. Ashman and Menken received two Golden Globe nominations and three Academy Award nominations, including two Best Original Song nominations for "Kiss the Girl" and "Under The Sea" with Ashman and Menken winning for the latter.
In 1988, while working on The Little Mermaid, Ashman pitched the idea of an animated musical adaptation of Aladdin to Disney. After he wrote a group of songs with partner Alan Menken and a film treatment, a screenplay was written by Linda Woolverton, who had worked on Beauty and the Beast.[17] Directors John Musker and Ron Clements then joined the production, and the story underwent many changes, with some elements of the original treatment being dropped. Out of the 16 songs written for Aladdin, three of Ashman's songs ended up in the finished film, which was released after his death.
During early production of Aladdin, Ashman and Menken were approached to help reinvigorate and save the production of Beauty and the Beast, which was going nowhere as a non-musical. Ashman, wishing to focus on Aladdin and his health, reluctantly agreed. It was at this time that his health began to decline due to his illness. Regardless, he completed lyrical work on Beauty and the Beast before his death in March 1991. The film was released mere months after his death and is dedicated to him. In May 2020, Beauty and the Beast co-director Kirk Wise said, "If you had to point to one person responsible for the 'Disney Renaissance', I would say it was Howard."[18]
Along with Menken, Ashman was the co-recipient of two Grammy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and two Academy Awards.
Personal life[edit]
Ashman met Stuart White, one of his first partners, at a summer university program in 1969.[19] Originally close friends, the two formed a bond which led to a relationship.[20] They both completed master's degrees at Indiana University and then moved to upstate New York. Ashman and White re-opened the Workshop of Players Art Foundation (WPA) together as artistic directors.[21] The two fell out in 1980, but reunited briefly in 1983.
Ashman then met Bill Lauch in 1984, who worked as an architect. Lauch accepted Ashman's posthumous Oscar for Beauty and the Beast in 1992, after Ashman's death.[22][23]
Death[edit]
Ashman was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in January 1988, as he continued to write songs. Peter Kunze noted that Ashman was supported by Jeffrey Katzenberg; Disney created a production unit near his home in Beacon, New York, allowing him to continue working on Beauty and the Beast, while undergoing treatment at the Saint Vincent's Catholic Medical Centers in New York City.[11][24] Ashman died at Saint Vincent's on March 14, 1991, at the age of 40, prior to the film's completion.[11][25] Beauty and the Beast was dedicated to his memory, featuring the message after the end credits: To our friend Howard, who gave a mermaid her voice, and a beast his soul. We will be forever grateful. Howard Ashman 1950-1991. He was buried in the Ohev Shalom Cemetery in Reisterstown, Maryland.[26]