The Man Behind the Magic
Welcome to History After Dark.
The kind of history that didn’t quite make it into your textbooks.
On March 14, 1991, Howard Ashman died from complications of AIDS.
He was forty years old.
At the time, Disney was working on an animated film about a young woman who loved books, a prince who had been turned into a beast, and an entire castle full of household objects that had somehow developed opinions.
Howard had helped write its songs.
He’d also helped shape the story itself.
But he wouldn’t live to see the finished film.
Beauty and the Beast wouldn’t reach theaters until November, eight months after his death. Another Disney movie he’d worked on, Aladdin, was still more than a year away.
And while millions of people would eventually grow up singing his lyrics, a surprising number of them would never learn his name.
Which is a shame.
Because Howard Ashman’s story is a lot bigger than a mermaid, a beast, and a genie.
There was Broadway.
There was a man-eating plant.
There was a musical about a beauty pageant that didn’t quite work out.
There were friendships, arguments, ridiculous jokes, and a man named Bill.
And long before any of that, there was a little boy in Baltimore who apparently couldn’t stand the idea of not putting on a show.
So, let’s start there.
The Boy Who Couldn’t Leave Theater Alone
Howard Elliott Ashman was born on May 17, 1950, in Baltimore, Maryland.
His parents were Shirley and Raymond Ashman, and according to the family, his mother chose his name partly because she thought it would look good on a theater marquee.
Which is a pretty ambitious thing to consider when naming a baby.
But, as it turned out, she wasn’t wrong.
Howard loved theater from an early age.
And I don’t mean he enjoyed watching the occasional school play.
He organized backyard productions, wrote stories and poetry, made up shows, and created publicity materials for performances he wanted to stage.
He was the writer.
The director.
Sometimes the star.
And apparently the marketing department, too.
He also became involved with Baltimore’s Children’s Theatre Association while he was young.
In a 1984 interview, Howard recalled joining the organization when he was six years old. A later timeline on his official website gives a different age, but both accounts make one thing pretty clear.
This kid was serious about theater.
Howard grew up listening to Broadway musicals, operettas, and Gilbert and Sullivan. He learned about acting, rehearsals, scenery, and lighting.
And he wasn’t only interested in what happened onstage.
He wanted to know how everything worked.
After high school, Howard studied theater at Boston University before transferring to Goddard College in Vermont, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in 1971.
He continued his education at Indiana University, performing with a professional touring repertory company and eventually earning a master’s degree.
His thesis project was a children’s musical adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen.
Yes.
A musical adaptation of a fairy tale.
Years before Disney.
I’m not going to pretend that means his entire future was somehow mapped out for him. Plenty of people adapt fairy tales without ending up at Disney.
But it does show that Howard had been interested in this kind of storytelling for a very long time.
And by the time he finished school, he knew he wanted to work in theater.
There was just one small problem.
Theater doesn’t always pay the bills.
A Job, a Theater, and a Plant With Issues
After graduate school, Howard moved to New York.
He found work in publishing, eventually becoming an editor at Grosset & Dunlap while continuing to write plays and pursue theater.
One of the projects he worked on was The Mickey Mouse Club Scrapbook.
Which means Howard Ashman had a professional connection to Mickey Mouse before he ever started writing songs for Disney.
I love when history does stuff like that.
While working in publishing, Howard continued developing his own productions.
In 1977, he and several partners took over leadership of the WPA Theatre, a small experimental theater company in New York.
Howard served as co-artistic director alongside Stuart White.
The WPA wasn’t exactly overflowing with money, but it gave him a place to develop new work and experiment with the kind of theater he wanted to make.
Stuart was a director Howard had known since graduate school. He’d also been Howard’s first love, according to Howard’s sister, Sarah Ashman Gillespie.
Their romantic relationship eventually ended, but their professional connection continued.
Then Howard met a composer named Alan Menken.
They began collaborating in 1978, and the following year, they presented a musical adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.
Howard wrote the book and lyrics and directed the production. Alan wrote the music.
It wasn’t the show that would make them famous.
That came a few years later.
And it involved a plant that really needed to learn some boundaries.
Little Shop of Horrors opened at the WPA Theatre in 1982.
Based on a low-budget 1960 horror-comedy film, it told the story of Seymour, a struggling flower-shop employee who discovers an unusual plant.
The plant attracts customers.
Business improves.
Things are looking up.
Unfortunately, the plant also eats human flesh.
Minor inconvenience.
Howard and Alan turned that ridiculous premise into a musical with memorable characters, dark humor, and songs that actually helped tell the story.
The production became a hit and transferred to the Orpheum Theatre in Manhattan’s East Village, where it ran for years.
Eventually, it became the 1986 film directed by Frank Oz, with a screenplay written by Howard.
But here’s what I find interesting about Little Shop.
The music isn’t just there because somebody thought a singing plant would be funny.
Although, obviously, it is.
The songs tell us what the characters want.
Seymour wants a better life.
Audrey dreams of escaping her circumstances.
And Audrey II?
Well.
Audrey II wants lunch.
The point is that the characters’ desires drive the story, and the music makes those desires impossible to miss.
That approach would become one of Howard’s greatest strengths.
He also had a reputation for being demanding.
Alan Menken later described Howard as impatient, controlling, and difficult at times.
He also remembered him as an extraordinarily generous and supportive friend.
Which sounds contradictory until you remember that people are allowed to be more than one thing.
Howard could care deeply about his friends and still drive them absolutely insane during rehearsals.
Apparently, he was quite capable of both.
When Howard Met Bill
In February 1984, Howard went to a bar on St. Marks Place in New York’s East Village.
It was called Boy Bar.
And while he was there, he met Bill Lauch.
Bill later wrote about that night on Howard’s official website.
He remembered the bar having a loud dance floor downstairs and a quieter lounge upstairs. They started talking downstairs, then moved upstairs so they could actually hear each other.
They talked about their families, their hometowns, and what they did for work.
Bill worked at an architectural firm in Manhattan.
Howard told him he wrote and directed theater.
When Bill asked whether he’d worked on anything recognizable, Howard mentioned Little Shop of Horrors.
And Bill had seen it.
Not only had he seen it, he’d attended a performance with the original cast.
Howard was delighted.
Bill remembered him as confident, outgoing, energetic, and easy to talk to. He also remembered Howard’s blue eyes, wavy blondish hair, and the little gap between his front teeth.
It’s such an ordinary story.
Two people meet at a bar.
They talk.
They realize they like each other.
And eventually, that first conversation becomes the beginning of a life together.
Howard and Bill would go on to share a home and build a relationship that lasted through the busiest years of Howard’s career.
Years later, Bill would remember sitting beside Howard while watching his work.
And then, after Howard died, watching it without him.
But none of that had happened yet.
In February 1984, they were just two men having a conversation in a bar.
And Howard was still busy making musicals.
The Broadway Show That Didn’t Quite Smile Back
By 1986, Little Shop of Horrors was a success, and Howard had another musical heading for Broadway.
This one was called Smile.
It was based on a 1975 film about a teenage beauty pageant, and Howard had actually wanted to work on the adaptation years earlier.
He didn’t get the job.
But when the production later needed major revisions, he was approached again.
Howard wasn’t interested in simply patching up somebody else’s material. He wanted to start over.
Composer Marvin Hamlisch agreed, and they rebuilt much of the show.
Howard wrote the book and lyrics and directed it.
The musical explored beauty pageants, ambition, parental expectations, and the pressure placed on young women to succeed.
Howard didn’t want every character divided neatly into heroes and villains.
He wanted them to feel like people.
Which, considering the subject matter, was probably a good idea.
Smile opened on Broadway in November 1986.
For a little while, posters for Smile and Little Shop of Horrors appeared side by side in New York’s Shubert Alley.
Imagine that.
Two productions with Howard’s name on them, playing in New York at the same time.
Not bad for the kid who used to make publicity materials for his own backyard shows.
Unfortunately, Smile didn’t have the commercial success Howard had hoped for.
Its Broadway run was short.
Still, it left behind some interesting pieces of his career.
One was a song called Disneyland.
Which Howard wrote before he became known for his work with Disney.
Another was a young performer in the cast named Jodi Benson.
We’ll get back to her.
Because by the end of 1986, Howard was beginning a new chapter in his career.
And this one would involve an actual Disney princess.
A Mermaid, a Crab, and a Very Important Song
Howard began working with Disney in 1986.
He contributed lyrics to Once Upon a Time in New York City, a song for Oliver & Company, but the project that would really change things was The Little Mermaid.
Howard brought Alan Menken into the production, and together they approached the film as a musical.
Not just an animated movie with some catchy songs thrown in.
A musical.
There is a difference.
Howard believed songs needed to serve the story. They could introduce a character, explain a desire, create conflict, or move the plot forward.
During a lecture to Disney’s creative staff, he explained how that worked.
And one of the examples he used was Ariel.
Before the audience can care about Ariel’s decision to leave the ocean, they need to understand why she wants to leave.
She collects human objects.
She studies the world above the water.
She is fascinated by things she doesn’t understand.
But fascination alone isn’t enough to carry the story.
We need to know what she wants.
That’s where Part of Your World comes in.
The song lets Ariel explain the life she’s imagining for herself.
Howard compared its storytelling purpose to Somewhere That’s Green from Little Shop of Horrors.
In one, Audrey dreams of an ordinary suburban home.
In the other, Ariel dreams of living on land.
Very different circumstances.
Same basic idea.
Both characters want a life they don’t have.
Howard also explained how Poor Unfortunate Souls moves the story forward.
Ursula doesn’t just sing about being evil.
She uses the song to persuade Ariel to make a terrible bargain.
By the time the number ends, Ariel has surrendered her voice.
That’s a pretty significant plot development to squeeze into a musical number.
And then there’s Sebastian.
Howard helped shape Sebastian’s character and advocated a Caribbean-inspired musical approach, which became central to songs like Under the Sea.
He also supported casting Jodi Benson as Ariel.
Remember her?
She’d performed in Smile.
Howard had worked with her before, knew what she could do, and believed she was right for the role.
But Howard’s contributions went beyond lyrics and casting suggestions.
He also co-produced The Little Mermaid with director John Musker.
He was involved in the actual development of the film, helping shape how its story would unfold.
That distinction matters, because it’s easy to hear someone described as a lyricist and assume they simply showed up, wrote some words, and went home.
That wasn’t Howard’s role.
The Little Mermaid premiered in November 1989.
The film became a major success and helped launch a new era for Disney animation.
At the Academy Awards in March 1990, Howard and Alan won Best Original Song for Under the Sea.
Alan also won for the film’s score.
It should have been an uncomplicated moment of celebration.
But there was something happening in Howard’s life that most of his Disney colleagues didn’t know about.
The Part of the Story Disney Couldn’t Fix
Howard had learned he was HIV-positive in early 1988.
By then, the AIDS epidemic had already killed thousands of people, and the medical community was still struggling to develop effective treatments.
There was no cure.
The combination therapies that would eventually allow many people with HIV to live much longer lives were still years away.
And alongside the illness itself came fear, misinformation, and discrimination.
I want to be careful here.
I can research the AIDS crisis. I can look at public health history, interviews, and firsthand accounts.
But I can’t tell you what it felt like to be Howard Ashman.
And I don’t want to pretend otherwise.
What we do know is that Howard had already lost people who mattered to him.
Stuart White, his former partner and WPA collaborator, died of AIDS in 1983.
He was thirty-four.
Howard organized a memorial for him at the theater they’d helped build.
Another former partner, David Evans, remained Howard’s friend after their relationship ended.
When David became ill, Howard and Bill helped care for him.
Howard later arranged his funeral.
These weren’t names Howard encountered in a newspaper.
They were people he’d known, loved, worked with, and spent time with.
His sister Sarah later wrote about them, remembering their personalities and their places in Howard’s life.
And that’s worth keeping in mind when discussing the epidemic.
Statistics tell us how many people died.
They don’t tell us who those people were.
Howard and Alan also wrote a song called Sheridan Square, which Alan later connected directly to the loss of young lives during the AIDS crisis.
But I don’t think we need to start digging through every Disney lyric looking for hidden references to Howard’s illness.
Some people have interpreted parts of his work that way.
That doesn’t mean we can establish those interpretations as Howard’s intentions.
He’d been writing about loneliness, longing, love, and belonging long before he was diagnosed.
Those subjects were already part of his work.
Howard kept his HIV status private from many colleagues for a time.
According to Alan Menken, Howard told him after the 1990 Academy Awards ceremony that they needed to talk when they returned to New York.
Two days later, Howard disclosed his diagnosis.
Think about that for a moment.
They’d been working together since the late 1970s.
They’d written musicals.
They’d argued over songs.
They’d celebrated successes and dealt with disappointments.
And Alan hadn’t known.
He later remembered that their working relationship changed after Howard told him.
They continued creating together, but Howard’s health was getting worse.
And Disney still had a movie to finish.
The Castle That Came to Life
Beauty and the Beast was already in development when Howard became involved.
And once again, he wasn’t content to simply write songs for whatever story Disney handed him.
He helped reshape it.
He also served as an executive producer on the film, giving him a formal creative role beyond writing lyrics.
One of his most important contributions was the idea of turning the castle’s servants into enchanted household objects.
Instead of having a castle full of ordinary people standing around waiting for the curse to break, there would be a candlestick, a clock, a teapot, and an entire collection of furniture and kitchenware with personalities.
Honestly, whoever first had to explain that concept in a meeting deserves some credit for keeping a straight face.
But it worked.
The enchanted servants made the castle feel alive, gave the Beast relationships beyond Belle, and created opportunities for humor and music.
And then there was Be Our Guest.
Because apparently if you’re going to turn a candlestick into a character, you might as well let him stage an entire Broadway production in the dining room.
Howard and Alan worked on the songs while the film’s creative team continued developing the story.
But as Howard’s health declined, it became harder for him to travel.
So members of the Disney team traveled to him.
Howard and Bill were living in Beacon, New York.
The Disney team set up a temporary workspace at a Residence Inn in nearby Fishkill, where they could continue developing Beauty and the Beast without requiring Howard to travel back and forth to California.
And I love how wonderfully unglamorous that sounds.
Some of the most recognizable songs in Disney history were being developed in a hotel conference room.
There were storyboards.
A piano.
People trying to figure out how to make the movie work.
And, according to producer Don Hahn, Howard sometimes brought doughnuts.
Because apparently even a Disney musical needs snacks.
They discussed scenes, worked on lyrics, and continued developing the film.
Sometimes Howard participated in recording sessions over the telephone when he was too ill to attend in person.
Bill later remembered Howard coming home with stories about the work and the storyboards he’d been looking at.
The project gave Howard something to focus on, even as his health continued to decline.
And Howard was still very much Howard.
Alan remembered one particularly frustrating session while they were working on Something There.
A tape recorder wasn’t cooperating.
Howard became angry and threw it across the room.
The machine hit the wall and broke.
Alan was shocked.
He later reflected on how much Howard was dealing with physically and emotionally during that period.
It’s not exactly the sort of anecdote that ends up in a cheerful Disney behind-the-scenes special.
But I like that it exists.
Howard wasn’t a perfectly patient, endlessly inspirational figure who smiled through every difficulty.
He could be frustrated.
He could be difficult.
And he could apparently destroy an expensive piece of recording equipment when he’d had enough.
Meanwhile, the movie kept taking shape.
One of the songs Howard and Alan originally wrote, Human Again, was cut because it created problems with the film’s pacing.
They replaced its storytelling function with the much shorter Something There.
And that replacement worked beautifully.
It helped show Belle and the Beast gradually changing how they saw each other without stopping the entire movie for a much larger musical sequence.
Howard lived long enough to see portions of Beauty and the Beast in an unfinished form, including rough animation and storyboards.
He never saw the fully completed film.
On March 14, 1991, he died.
He was forty.
The Songs That Kept Going
Beauty and the Beast premiered in November 1991.
It became the first animated feature nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture.
The title song won Best Original Song at the 1992 Academy Awards.
Howard received the award posthumously.
Bill Lauch accepted it on his behalf.
And what Bill said that night deserves a place in this story.
He publicly acknowledged that he and Howard had shared a home and a life together.
He also spoke about the support Howard had received while working through his illness.
Bill explained that understanding, love, and support weren’t just things people facing AIDS needed.
They were things those people deserved.
He also mentioned the inscription on Howard’s grave in Baltimore, which expressed the wish that Howard had one more song to sing.
And he thanked the Academy for honoring what Howard had left behind.
I think that speech matters.
Not because we need to turn it into some grand emotional moment, but because Bill used one of Hollywood’s biggest stages to speak openly about their relationship and about AIDS at a time when both subjects were still surrounded by considerable stigma.
And at the end of Beauty and the Beast, Disney included a dedication:
“To our friend Howard, who gave a mermaid her voice and a beast his soul. He will be forever missed.”
But Beauty and the Beast wasn’t the last Disney film to feature Howard’s work.
In 1992, Aladdin arrived in theaters.
Howard had written an early treatment for the film back in 1988, although Disney ultimately went in a different direction with the story.
Three songs he wrote with Alan Menken remained in the finished movie:
Arabian Nights.
Friend Like Me.
Prince Ali.
Other songs, including A Whole New World, were written by Alan and lyricist Tim Rice after Howard’s death.
And there’s an interesting little connection here.
As a teenager, Howard had performed as Aladdin in a 1965 production at Baltimore’s Children’s Theatre Association.
Decades later, songs he’d written for another version of that story were being heard around the world.
Howard never got to see the finished film.
But his work was there.
And it kept finding new audiences.
Beauty and the Beast opened on Broadway in 1994.
Human Again, the song cut from the animated film, found a place in the stage production and was later added to an expanded version of the movie.
Howard was named a Disney Legend in 2001.
In 2014, Aladdin opened on Broadway, bringing more of his earlier material to the stage, including Proud of Your Boy, a song written for a version of the film that had changed considerably before its release.
And in 2018, Don Hahn directed Howard, a documentary about his life and career.
Years after his death, people were still discovering things he’d written.
Still performing his songs.
Still talking about how he worked.
Alan Menken continued writing music for Disney and the stage, but he never forgot what he’d learned during their partnership.
In later interviews, Alan spoke about Howard’s influence on his work and the way Howard had taught him to think about storytelling through music.
Not just writing a good song.
Writing the right song for the moment.
There’s a difference.
And Howard understood it.
The Man Behind the Magic
When I started researching Howard Ashman, I already knew his work.
I’d heard the songs.
I’d watched the movies.
I knew The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin.
What I didn’t know was how much of himself he’d put into the stories beyond the lyrics.
Or how much theater he’d made before Disney.
Or that he’d worked on a Mickey Mouse book while trying to build a career in New York.
Or that the man behind Under the Sea had also written a musical about a bloodthirsty plant.
And I definitely didn’t know that one of the most important relationships in his life began with a conversation in a bar near the theater where Little Shop of Horrors was playing.
Those details don’t make his Disney songs better.
They don’t need to.
But they make Howard Ashman feel less like a name in the credits and more like an actual person.
Someone who had ambitions that didn’t always work out.
Someone who fell in love.
Someone who made people laugh.
Someone who could be generous, demanding, funny, impatient, and occasionally a pain in the ass.
Someone who happened to be extraordinarily good at telling stories.
It’s easy to focus on the fact that he died at forty.
Forty is young.
There were projects he never got to finish and things he never got to experience.
But if we spend all our time thinking about what Howard didn’t get to do, we risk overlooking everything he actually did.
He helped build a theater company.
He wrote plays and musicals.
He helped turn a low-budget horror movie into an Off-Broadway phenomenon.
He worked with composers, actors, animators, directors, and performers who remembered him decades later.
He helped bring a mermaid, a beast, and a genie to life.
And the music didn’t stop when he died.
Children who weren’t born in 1991 have grown up singing Howard Ashman’s songs.
Some have performed them onstage.
Some have watched the movies so many times they could probably recite the dialogue without looking at the screen.
And some have no idea who wrote the words.
Maybe they’ll find out one day.
Maybe they’ll come across his name in the credits, get curious, and discover a man who spent most of his life working in theater before Disney ever entered the picture.
Maybe they’ll learn about Little Shop of Horrors.
Or Smile.
Or the little boy in Baltimore who liked putting on shows.
I hope they do.
Because Howard Ashman didn’t just leave behind a handful of memorable Disney songs.
He left behind a body of work that people are still performing, studying, and enjoying.
And somewhere tonight, there’s probably an audience watching a musical he helped create.
A song starts.
The characters begin singing.
And the story moves forward.
Exactly the way Howard wanted it to.
Sources & Further Reading
Every History After Dark article is built from multiple sources whenever possible.
For Howard Ashman’s story, I relied on his family’s official archive, firsthand accounts from people who knew and worked with him, Disney’s production history, Academy Awards records, and archival material preserved by the Library of Congress.
Because we’re dealing with a real person’s life, I’ve tried to distinguish documented events from people’s memories and interpretations.
Howard’s Life and Early Career
Howard Ashman’s Official Website — The Life and Work of Howard Ashman
A major biographical source for Howard’s childhood, education, early theater work, collaborations, Disney career, and final years. Also useful for identifying his production responsibilities beyond songwriting.
Howard Ashman’s Official Website — Timeline
Used to establish the chronology of Howard’s education, WPA Theatre productions, work with Alan Menken, Smile, and his Disney projects. Where the timeline differs from firsthand recollections or official award records, I’ve tried to preserve those distinctions.
Library of Congress — Howard Ashman Papers: Finding Aid
An inventory of Howard’s manuscripts, correspondence, scripts, production notes, photographs, and other materials. Particularly useful for confirming the existence and dates of early theatrical work and Disney treatments. The finding aid describes the collection; it does not reproduce every document.
Theater and Disney Productions
Howard Ashman’s Official Website — Smile
Used for the development of Smile, Howard’s collaboration with Marvin Hamlisch, the Broadway production, and Jodi Benson’s involvement.
Howard Ashman’s Official Website — Aladdin
Used to distinguish Howard’s early treatment from the finished film and identify the songs that survived into the movie and later stage production.
Howard Ashman’s Official Website — Beauty & the Beast
Used for Howard’s contributions to the animated film, its production history, and the later stage adaptation.
D23 / The Walt Disney Company — Howard Ashman, Disney Legend
Disney’s official overview of Howard’s career, awards, contributions to animation, and posthumous recognition. Also confirms his co-producer credit on The Little Mermaid.
D23 — Beauty and the Beast Producer Don Hahn’s Five Favorite Memories
A firsthand account of the production team’s work in Fishkill, New York, while Howard was living in nearby Beacon. Includes details about the temporary hotel workspace, story development, and Howard’s involvement.
Howard Ashman’s Disney Lecture — Compiled Transcript
Used to understand Howard’s approach to storytelling through music, particularly his explanations of Part of Your World and Poor Unfortunate Souls. Because the posted document is a compilation of excerpts rather than a verified complete transcript, I’ve paraphrased the ideas rather than relying on direct quotations.
Firsthand Accounts and Personal Remembrances
Bill Lauch — When Howard Met Bill
Bill’s firsthand recollection of meeting Howard in February 1984. Used for the account of their first conversation and Bill’s memories of Howard’s personality.
Sarah Ashman Gillespie — March 14, 1991, Twenty Years Ago Today
Sarah’s remembrance of Howard and the people close to him who died during the AIDS epidemic, including Stuart White and David Evans.
Sarah Ashman Gillespie — Good Night, Goodbye
A personal account of Howard’s final illness. Useful for understanding the family’s experience and the importance of not romanticizing his suffering.
Alan Menken — Interview, Part One
Used for Alan’s memories of Howard’s working personality, their collaboration on Beauty and the Beast, and Howard’s disclosure of his HIV diagnosis.
Alan Menken — Interview, Part Two
Used for their early theater work, their friendship, the song Sheridan Square, and Alan’s reflections on Howard’s influence.
Radio Times — The True Story Behind Howard Ashman’s Disney Legacy
Includes recollections from Don Hahn, Bill Lauch, and Sarah Ashman Gillespie about Howard’s life, work, and contributions to Disney animation.
Awards and Historical Records
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — The 62nd Academy Awards, 1990
Used to verify the Academy Award received by Howard Ashman and Alan Menken for Under the Sea, along with Alan’s separate award for the film’s score.
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences — The 64th Academy Awards, 1992
Used to verify Beauty and the Beast‘s Best Picture nomination and Howard and Alan’s Best Original Song win.
Broadway Podcast Network — Celebrating Howard Ashman
Includes Bill Lauch’s recollections and a recording of his 1992 Academy Awards acceptance speech. Used for his public acknowledgment of their relationship and his remarks about the understanding and support deserved by people facing AIDS.
A Note on Sources
There’s a difference between telling someone’s story and pretending to know everything about them.
Howard Ashman left behind an extraordinary amount of work, and people who knew him have shared memories of his life.
Those accounts help us understand who he was.
But they don’t tell us every private thought he had, or what he intended every lyric to mean.
I’ve tried not to fill those gaps with assumptions.
I’ve also avoided treating his diagnosis as the explanation for everything he created afterward. Howard was writing about longing, loneliness, love, and belonging long before he became ill.
And while the AIDS crisis is an important part of his history, I don’t want it to swallow the rest of his life.
His relationships mattered.
His work mattered.
His failures mattered.
So did the ordinary things that don’t always make it into biographies.
The people who knew Howard have left us enough of those details to remember him as something more than a name attached to famous songs.
And I think that’s worth doing.
History is often stranger than fiction.
See you next Friday.
— Destiny
