Howard Ashman ( May 17, 1950 Baltimore, Maryland - March 14, 1991 Los Angeles,California ) was an American playwright and movie music lyricist. Ashman first studied at Boston University and Goddard College (with a stop at Tufts University's Summer Theater) and then went on to achieve his master's degree from Indiana University in 1974. He collaborated with Alan Menken on several films, notably animated features for Disney, Ashman writing the lyrics and Menken composing the scores.

Ashman, born Howard Elliott Gershman, first worked with Menken on a 1979 musical adapted from Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. They also collaborated on Little Shop of Horrors with Ashman as director, lyricist, and librettist.

Along with Menken, Ashman was the co-recipient of two Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and two Oscars. His second Academy Award in 1992 was awarded posthumuously for Best Song and was accepted by his partner, Bill Lauch.

He would later succumb to AIDS at the age of 40, during the making of both Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin. The song Proud of Your Boy from Aladdin was the one of the last songs ever written by Ashman but was cut from the movie after the mother was taken out of the story. Ashman and Menken had finished the songs for Beauty and the Beast, but Tim Rice was brought in to finish the Aladdin songs with Menken. Beauty and the Beast was dedicated to him with the following:

To our friend, Howard,
Who gave a mermaid her voice,
and a beast his soul.
We will be forever grateful.
Howard Ashman
1950-1991

Alan Menken (born July 22, 1949 in New Rochelle, New York) is an American Broadway and Academy Award winning film score composer and pianist. Menken has collaborated with several renowned lyricists including Howard Ashman (1950-1991), Tim Rice and Stephen Schwartz. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.