Howard Ashman | |
|---|---|
 Ashman in 1989 | |
| Born | Howard Elliott Ashman (1950-05-17)May 17, 1950 Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. |
| Died | March 14, 1991(1991-03-14) (aged 40) New York City, U.S. |
| Resting place | Ohev Shalom Memorial Park,Reisterstown, Maryland, U.S. |
| Alma mater | Indiana University Boston University |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1977–1991 |
| Notable work | Little Shop of Horrors The Little Mermaid Beauty and the Beast Aladdin |
| Partner(s) | Stuart White (1969–1980, 1983) Bill Lauch (1984–1991) |
| Awards | 2Academy Awards (1989, 1991) 5Grammy Awards (1991, 1993, 1994) |
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 forWalt Disney Animation Studios, for which Ashman wrote the lyrics andAlan Menken composed the music.[2] Ashman has been credited as being a main driving force behind theDisney Renaissance.[3][4][5][6] His work included songs forLittle Shop of Horrors,The Little Mermaid,Beauty and the Beast, andAladdin.Tim Rice took over to write the rest of the songs for the latter film after Ashman's death in 1991.
Ashman was born inBaltimore, Maryland, the son of Shirley Thelma (née Glass) and Raymond Albert Ashman, an ice cream cone manufacturer.[7] His family wasJewish.[8][9] He started his theater experiences with the Children's Theater Association (CTA), playing roles such as Peter Pan.[10] Ashman first studied atBoston University andGoddard College (with a stop atTufts University's Summer Theater) and then went on to earn a master's degree in fine arts atIndiana University in 1974.[11]
After graduating from Indiana University in 1974, Ashman moved to New York and worked as an editor atGrosset & Dunlap. His first two plays,Cause Maggie's Afraid of the Dark andDreamstuff, were met with mixed reviews. Ashman's playThe Confirmation was produced in 1977 at Princeton's McCarter Theater and starredHerschel Bernardi. In 1977, he became the artistic director of the Workshop of the Players Art Foundation's WPA Theater in New York. Ashman met future collaboratorAlan Menken at theBMI Workshop, where he was classmates withMaury Yeston andEd Kleban, among others. He first worked with Menken on the 1979 musicalKurt Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, adapted fromVonnegut'snovel of the same name.[2]
The turning point for both partners was the success ofLittle Shop of Horrors with Ashman as director, lyricist, and librettist. The show became a cultOff-Broadway hit, winning theDrama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics and receiving aGrammy Award nomination.[12]
Ashman also directed the workshop ofNine by Yeston at theEugene 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 musicalSmile (music byMarvin Hamlisch). It was here he metJodi Benson, who would go on to play Ariel.[14] This musical was generally not well received[15] and closed with only 48 performances.[2] However, Ashman received a nomination at theTony Awards forBest Book of a Musical. Also in 1986, Ashman wrote the screenplay for theFrank Oz–directed film adaptation of his musicalLittle 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 inWalt Disney Animation Studios'Oliver & Company. He then also worked withTina Turner on a script[16] which never came to fruition.[17] While at Disney, 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. That film wasThe Little Mermaid, Disney's first fairy tale in 30 years. Ashman, along with Menken, wrote all of the songs for the film.
It was while working onThe Little Mermaid that Ashman was diagnosed with early symptoms of AIDS. He kept his illness private from his colleagues, and continued to work.
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 was an enormous success. Ashman and Menken received two nominations at theGolden Globe Awards and three nominations at theAcademy Awards, including twoBest Original Song nominations for "Kiss the Girl" and "Under The Sea." Ashman and Menken won for the latter.
In 1988, while working onThe Little Mermaid, Ashman pitched the idea of an animated musical adaptation ofAladdin to Disney. After he wrote afilm treatment and a group of songs with partner Alan Menken,Linda Woolverton, who would also work onBeauty and the Beast, contributed a screenplay.[18] After directorsJohn Musker andRon Clements joined the production, the story underwent many changes, with some elements of the original treatment being dropped. Out of the 16 songs written forAladdin, three of Ashman's songs ended up in the finished film, which was released after his death.
During the early production ofAladdin, Ashman and Menken were approached to help reinvigorate and save the production ofBeauty and the Beast, which was going nowhere as a non-musical. Ashman, whose health was beginning to decline, and who wished to focus onAladdin, reluctantly agreed. Disney accommodated his illness by shifting much of the production process to New York. He completed lyrical work onBeauty 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-directorKirk Wise said, "If you had to point to one person responsible for the 'Disney Renaissance', I would say it was Howard."[19]
In March 1992, a little over a year after Ashman's death, he and Alan Menken won the Oscar for Best Original Song forBeauty and the Beast, the theme song from the film of the same name.
Along with Menken, Ashman was the co-recipient of twoGrammy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, and two Academy Awards.
Ashman met Stuart White, one of his first partners, at a summer university program in 1969.[20] Originally close friends, the two formed a bond which led to a relationship.[21] They both completed master's degrees atIndiana University and then moved to New York. Ashman and White re-opened the WPA Theater together as artistic directors.[22] The two fell out in 1980, but reunited briefly in 1983, slightly before White's death as a result of AIDS.[23]
Ashman then met Bill Lauch in 1984, who worked as an architect. Lauch accepted Ashman's posthumous Oscar forBeauty and the Beast in 1992, after Ashman's death.[24][25]
Ashman was diagnosed withHIV/AIDS in January 1988 during production ofThe Little Mermaid, as he continued to write songs. Peter Kunze noted that Ashman was supported byJeffrey Katzenberg; Disney created a production unit near his home inBeacon, New York, allowing him to continue working onBeauty and the Beast, while undergoing treatment at theSaint Vincent's Catholic Medical Centers in New York City.[11][26] Ashman died at Saint Vincent's on March 14, 1991, at the age of 40, prior to the film's completion.[11][27]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 inReisterstown, Maryland.[28]
Over the course of his career, Ashman won two Academy Awards (one posthumous) out of seven nominations. Of these nominations, four are posthumous nominations, the most in Academy Awards history.[citation needed] He also won a posthumousLaurence Olivier Award and fiveGrammy Awards (three of them posthumous), among other accolades.
On the 2002 Special Edition DVD ofBeauty and the Beast, the Disney animators teamed up again and added a new song called "Human Again", which Ashman and Menken had written for the film but had been cut from the finished product. On Disc 2, there is a short documentary entitledHoward Ashman: In Memoriam that features many people who worked onBeauty and the Beast who talk about Ashman's involvement on the film and how his death was truly a loss for them.
Jeffrey Katzenberg claims there are two angels watching down on them that put their magic touch on every film they made. Those two angels are Ashman andWalt Disney himself.[30]
An album of Ashman singing his own work entitledHoward Sings Ashman was released on November 11, 2008, byPS Classics as part of the Library of Congress "Songwriter Series".
The 2009 documentary,Waking Sleeping Beauty, which centers around Disney's animation renaissance, is dedicated to him, as well asFrank Wells,Joe Ranft, andRoy E. Disney.
In March 2017, Don Hahn confirmed he was working on a documentary biographical film about Howard Ashman.[31] The documentary film titledHoward premiered at theTribeca Film Festival on April 22, 2018,[2][32] before having a limited theatrical run on December 18, 2018. It was released onDisney+ on August 7, 2020, and was initially slated for removal on May 26, 2023.[33] However, Disney reversed course in response to fan outcry.[34]
Like with the originalBeauty and the Beast, the2023 live-action adaptation ofThe Little Mermaid was also dedicated to his memory.
