Ashman, Howard Elliot

(b. 17 May 1950 in Baltimore, Maryland; d. 14 March 1991 in New York City), lyricist and playwright best known for his Academy Award–winning songs, written in collaboration with the composer Alan Menken, for Walt Disney Pictures’ films The Little Mermaid (1989) and Beauty and the Beast (1991).

Ashman was one of two children of Raymond Albert Ashman, an ice-cream cone manufacturer, and Shirley Thelma Glass, a homemaker. He attended Boston University and received a B.A. from Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont, in 1971. He earned an M.F.A. from Indiana University in Bloomington in 1974.

Ashman then moved to New York City, becoming a book editor at Grosset and Dunlap, where he found time to indulge his love of playwriting. His works included ’Cause Maggie’s Afraid of the Darl and Dreamstuff, a musical version of The Tempest—both produced in 1976. The Confirmation was produced in 1978. Dreamstuff’was his first work in association with the off-off-Broadway WPA Theatre, for which Ashman accepted the post of artistic director in 1977. He remained the organization’s guiding force until 1982.

In 1979 Ashman drew attention as lyricist, co-librettist (with Dennis Green), and director of God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. Ashman had given the fledgling composer Alan Menken his big break, choosing him over a number of competitors to write the music for the stage adaptation of the author Kurt Vonnegut’s tale of an eccentric multimillionaire bent on giving away his fortune. Menken told People magazine in 1991, “With Howard, I realized I was dealing with somebody monumentally talented. I knew great things were going to come.”

Ashman worked brief stints as guest director of West-chester Regional Theatre in Harrison, New York, from 1979 to 1980 and as stage director of Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., from 1980 to 1981. He continued his association with Menken, and the pair soon found success with the 1982 off-Broadway hit Little Shop of Horrors. The musical about a shy flower-store clerk whose fate becomes entangled with a man-eating plant won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for best musical of 1982 to 1983. It also won the 1982 Drama Desk Award for outstanding lyrics, the 1982 Outer Critics Circle Awards for best lyrics and best off-Broadway musical, the 1983 London Evening Standard Award, and a 1983 Grammy nomination for best cast show album. The pair composed two additional songs for the musical’s 1986 film adaptation, which earned Ashman his first Academy Award nomination for the rhythm-and-blues-tinged “Mean Green Mother from Outer Space.” The musical became the highest-grossing and third-longest-running musical in off-Broadway history. With Our Town, it remains the most-produced play in American high schools.

In 1986 Ashman wrote the Broadway production of Smile with Marvin Hamlisch and received a 1987 Tony Award nomination for best book. Soon after, Walt Disney Pictures decided to venture into the realm of animated musicals for the first time in more than ten years. The film producer David Geffen, who had worked on Little Shop of Horrors, recommended Ashman to Disney, and Ashman brought in Menken.

Ashman and Menken collaborated on the 1989 feature The Little Mermaid, which was deemed an instant classic because of its unforgettable music. Ashman, who also served as the film’s producer, decided that an animated crab character should have a Jamaican accent. Thus was born the calypso song “Under the Sea,” which won Ashman the 1989 Academy Award for best original song. The song also won a Golden Globe Award, and the soundtrack won a Grammy for best album for children. Reflecting in the Chicago Tribune in 1989, Ashman said, “Writing about crabs singing to mermaids involves the same craft as writing about man-eating plants from outer space. In both cases, the songs have to mesh with the story and push it forward.”

Three days after the 1989 Academy Awards ceremony, while at the Beacon, New York, cottage that Ashman shared with his partner, the architect William Lauch, Ashman told Menken that he had tested positive for HIV. The pair persevered in their collaboration, next penning Beauty and the Beast (1991), which Ashman also executive-produced. The film won 1992 Academy Awards for best original score and for its title song, which was deemed best original song. The song also won a Golden Globe Award, and the soundtrack again won the Grammy for best album for children.

Ashman also finished work on three songs for Aladdin (1992), the score of which Menken completed with lyricist Tim Rice. “Friend Like Me” received 1993 Academy Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for best original song; “Prince Ali” also received a Golden Globe Award nomination for best original song.

Ashman’s death at age forty from complications of AIDS preceded the release of the final two films. In 1995, four years after his death, the WPA Theatre saluted its former artistic director with Hundreds of Hats, a revue of Ashman’s songs.

In 1997 Menken told the New York Times that “the intensity of a life close to the end” came through in the songs from Beauty and the Beast. “It’s tragic what didn’t get written,” he continued. “We had a great career ahead of us.” A Walt Disney official commented, “In animation, we have two guardian angels. One is Walt Disney, who continues to touch every frame of our movies. The other is Howard Ashman, who continues to touch every note of our movies.”

Ashman can be credited in large part with the renaissance of the animated Disney musical, which continued throughout the 1990s. The wave of films introduced numerous songs and images into popular culture and the indelible memories of a generation of children. The final credits of Beauty and the Beast contained this dedication to Ashman: “To our friend Howard, who gave a mermaid her voice and a beast his soul.”

Ashman’s Disney songwriting is featured in The Illustrated Treasury of Disney Songs (1998). He was interviewed in Starlog magazine (Mar. 1990). Interviews with his collaborator Alan Menken appeared in People (16 Dec. 1991) and the New York Times (13 July 1997). A brief biography is in Contemporary Theatre, Film, and Television, vol. 12 (1994). Obituaries are in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times (both 15 Mar. 1991).

Leigh Dyer