| Interment Location | Visited | |
|---|---|---|
| Reisterstown, MD | July 18, 2024 |
He wrote the story-furthering lyrics to some of the most memorable and beloved songs in the Walt Disney Company’s catalogue and was amply recognized for his work. Twice he received the Academy Award for Best Original Song, twice won a Golden Globe, and five times he was honored with a Grammy. Howard Ashman did not live long enough to receive all of his accolades or award show hardware, but hopefully he knew that he made a substantial cultural impression during his all-too-short career. After his death at age 41, Ashman was laid to rest in his native Maryland, at the Jewish Oheb Shalom Memorial Park in Reisterstown. His flat marker is east of a monument that includes the Ten Commandments. To watch the trailer for the documentary about this important figure in the Disney Renaissance of the late twentieth century, click here.
Ashman’s first artistic love was theater. In the 1970s when he was in his 20s, he had several of his plays produced: Cause Maggie’s Afraid of the Dark, Dreamstuff, and The Confirmation. He later worked on Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater and he directed and wrote the book for the 1982 off-Broadway play Little Shop of Horrors. When Little Shop of Horrors was adapted to the screen in 1986, it included additional songs by Ashman and his writing partner, Alan Menken, that did not appear in the stage production. One such tune, “Mean Green Mother from Outer Space,” netted the pair their first Oscar nomination. Ashman first came to work for Disney in 1986 — originally separate from Menken — while the studio was producing Oliver & Company. Ashman was working on the production of The Little Mermaid in March 1988 when he — like many people of the decade, but especially gay men — was diagnosed with HIV. Through his illness, he continued to work with Menken, who by then had joined him at Disney. Two of their songs from The Little Mermaid, “Kiss the Girl” and “Under the Sea,” were nominated for Oscars, Grammys, and Golden Globes. “Under the Sea” won each of those awards, and the duo received another Grammy for Best Recording for Children. It was actually not until a few days after their Oscar wins in March 1990 that Ashman clued Menken in on his life-threatening illness.
As Ashman’s physical condition worsened in 1990, Disney sent a production team to the Hudson River Valley, where the lyricist lived, so that he could continue to both receive medical care in New York City and contribute to the production of Beauty and the Beast. The film achieved wide-release in November 1991, eight months after Ashman’s death at Saint Vincent’s Medical Centers in Manhattan. Posthumously, Ashman was co-nominated with Menken for the Best Original Song Oscar for a whopping three of Beauty and the Beast‘s songs, with the titular number winning. Ashman’s epitaph laments, “Oh that he had one more song to sing, one more song…” Before his passing, Ashman also wrote lyrics for Disney’s Aladdin, which was released in 1992. The Robin Williams number “Friend Like Me” earned Ashman his seventh and final Academy Award nomination. Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, and The Little Mermaid were all later adapted to the stage and netted him posthumous Tony Award nominations. The one Tony nomination he received while he was alive was in 1987 for the previous year’s Broadway production, Smile.
Fast Facts
Born: May 17, 1950 in Baltimore, Maryland
Academy Awards: Best Original Song (1990, 1992)
Grammy Awards: Best Recording for Children (1991); Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television (1991, 1993); Best Musical Album for Children (1993, 1994)
Disney Legends: Class of 2001
Died: March 14, 1991 in Manhattan, New York, New York
Cause of Death: Complications from HIV/AIDS
Age: 40
Interment: Oheb Shalom Memorial Park, Reisterstown, Maryland
"Obviously, the animated film works in a totally different way. There is no collective game being played that this may have really happened and the camera just happened to be there. We know it was drawn. So we know that the basic realty that we're dealing with is totally, totally different. It's just subconsciously somewhere in the back of our heads. We watch in a different way, therefore it makes it easier to sing. I have a theory. It may be that music plays such an important role here -- that music may have more license in the animated film in the same way that it does in the theater, simply because the level of reality is different. There's no game being played by a theater audience. We know that's happening right in front of us and it's painted scenery and it's not real. We go to the movies, it's a real street -- or it looks a lot more like a real street -- and we pretend it maybe really happened."
- Howard Ashman
April 28, 1987 in a lecture delivered to the production staff of the film, The Little Mermaid
Sources Consulted and Further Reading
Hahn, Don, director. Howard. Stone Circle Pictures, 2018. 1hr., 34 min.
IMDb. “Howard Ashman (1950-1991).” Accessed August 1, 2024. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0039141/.
Scribd. “Howard Ashman’s Lecture at Disney During The Little Mermaid Production.” Accessed August 1, 2024. https://www.scribd.com/document/484479458/Howard-Ashman-s-Lecture-at-Disney-During-the-The-Disney-Elite.
The Disney Archives. “The Little Mermaid – Howard’s Lecture.” YouTube video, 16:27. April 12, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5h06FSVoqr4&t=83s.
