MOVIE MUSIC UK

Lyricist, playwright, director and producer Howard Ashman died in New York City ten years ago today, on March 14, 1991, at the age of 40, from complications related to AIDS.

Although his career was tragically brief, Ashman played a crucial role in revitalizing both the American musical theatre and Disney animation. With composer Alan Menken he wrote the songs for Little Shop of Horrors, The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, while his final work on Aladdin was completed shortly before his death. He won two Academy Awards for Best Original Song, the second posthumously.

Howard Elliott Ashman was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on May 17, 1950, and developed an early interest in theatre. He studied at Boston University and Goddard College before earning a master’s degree from Indiana University. Moving to New York in 1974, he worked briefly in publishing while writing plays and became involved with the small WPA Theatre, eventually serving as its artistic director.

Ashman’s first collaboration with Alan Menken was the 1979 musical God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, adapted from Kurt Vonnegut’s novel. Their breakthrough came three years later with Little Shop of Horrors, based on Roger Corman’s low-budget 1960 comedy about a man-eating plant. Ashman wrote the book and lyrics and directed the original production, while Menken composed the music. Its mixture of 1960s pop, Motown, comedy and horror became an enormous Off-Broadway success.

Frank Oz directed the film adaptation of Little Shop of Horrors in 1986, starring Rick Moranis and Ellen Greene. Ashman and Menken wrote several new songs, including “Mean Green Mother from Outer Space,” which received an Academy Award nomination. That same year Ashman collaborated with Marvin Hamlisch on the Broadway musical Smile, which was unsuccessful but contained the admired song “Disneyland.”

That connection proved prophetic. Disney recruited Ashman and Menken during a period when its animation division was struggling to rediscover the musical storytelling that had characterized its greatest films. The Little Mermaid (1989) transformed the studio’s fortunes. Ashman not only wrote the lyrics but served as co-producer and helped shape characters, dialogue and story, approaching the film essentially as an animated Broadway musical. “Part of Your World,” “Kiss the Girl” and “Under the Sea” became instant standards, with the latter winning Ashman and Menken the Academy Award for Best Original Song.

Their next film, Beauty and the Beast (1991), represented an even greater achievement. Ashman’s lyrics ranged from the exuberant theatricality of “Be Our Guest” and the comic character writing of “Gaston” to the emotional simplicity of the title song. He also helped restructure the story and encouraged the filmmakers to treat the Beast, rather than Belle, as the character undergoing the most important emotional transformation.

Ashman was diagnosed as HIV-positive during the production of Beauty and the Beast. As his health deteriorated, Disney arranged for work sessions to take place near his home in New York so that he could continue contributing. He lived long enough to see an early version of the completed film but died eight months before its theatrical release. The finished picture was dedicated to him with the words: “To our friend Howard, who gave a mermaid her voice and a beast his soul.”

The title song from Beauty and the Beast won Ashman a second Academy Award posthumously in 1992; his partner Bill Lauch accepted the award on his behalf. Ashman had also begun work with Menken on Aladdin, contributing songs including “Arabian Nights,” “Friend Like Me” and “Prince Ali.” “Friend Like Me” subsequently earned him another posthumous Oscar nomination.

Ashman was inducted posthumously as a Disney Legend in 2001.