The Best Sister: An Interview With Sarah Ashman Gillespie

Howard Ashman was a brilliant and young musical writer. He collaborated with Alan Menken to create music for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid. Unfortunately, Howard died of AIDS in 1991 before he could complete work on Aladdin, his third Disney musical. Fellow collaborator and composter Alan Menken had to finish the project with Sir Tim Rice.

On the Howard Ashman website, Howard’s sister Sarah Ashman Gillespie quotes New York Times correspondent Janet Maslin when describing Howard’s legacy: “His death from AIDS in March at age 40 cut short a brilliant career, but the jubilant energy of his work will long live on.”  Ms. Maslin could have not have been more correct. Thirty years have passed, but we have not forgotten Howard’s music or gift of storytelling.

Forum

The Feed Me forum is a place where Howard Ashman fans can congregate; share personal stories of how singing “Skid Row” got them through horrendous school experiences; and request demos or demos of unpublished songs from Aladdin. Sarah, the forum’s main moderator and website founder, answers all posted questions with immediate courtesy and honesty. Her blog Da Doo recalls Howard through discovered photographs and handwritten notes, gives opinion on song lyrics, and finds guest writers such as Jodi Benson and John Musker who describe their experiences working with Howard. In Ms. Benson’s case, she describes how Howard coaxed Ariel’s character out of her recording sessions.

A former VP and Director of Comic Art at United Feature Syndicate, Sarah founded Feed Me as well as the Howard Ashman website after her friend Nancy Parent told her she had to. Wild Frog studio designed the site and its coding. Sarah handles the copy and the blog, thanking Wild Frog’s principal Rodica Ceslov for educating her about Twitter, Facebook, and other modern social network systems.

Sarah and Howard Ashman

Legacy

“When Howard died, I thought his incredible talent would be ignored and pushed aside by the rest of the world and that only the people who had loved him, worked with him and maybe a few “theater geeks” god bless them all) would remember him,” she said. “I am deeply grateful to have been proven so absolutely wrong.”

Indeed, Feed Me’s participants range from professional actors to high school students to college seniors. At some point growing up we listened to “Part of Your World” or “Belle” and identified with being the outsider, the well-meaning girl who can’t help but cause her father trouble or the street orphan who wants to make his life better. Ironically, Howard’s music has created a common need to find out more about him.

The Future

Sarah plans to write a memoir about growing up with Howard, since they were close siblings. Unlike him she studied education as well as theater in college – “theater, because Howard seemed to be having so much fun and education because I actually always wanted to be a teacher.” Although Sarah never became a teacher, she developed a keen sense of humor that aided her career at United Feature Syndicate. These achievements include her discovery of Dilbert and its creator Scott Adams.

Howard possessed an identical keen sense of humor when writing music. That was one reason why he found success. For example, the demo of “Arabian Nights” he keeps repeating “dialogue, dialogue” while playing the introduction. Little Shop of Horrors opens with a grim narrator announcing the end of the human race and three ladies belting the light-hearted title song in G major. The Little Mermaid features a sequence where Sebastian the crab flees from a knife-throwing seafood chef. Sarah has even posted a rare interview with Howard’s sense of humor.

When not updating the site or answering questions, Sarah takes ballroom dancing lessons. She also listens to the “standards” like Sarah Vaughn and Ella Fitzgerald.  She advises that if someone you love drives you crazy, “admit that they’re driving you crazy and cherish them anyway.  As for commemorating loved ones, frankly, the best way to commemorate anyone is simply to hold them in your heart and mind.  Anything else is just icing on the cake.”

Ashman Gillespie, Sarah. “Writing the Words.” Weblog post. Da Doo. N.p., 10 July 2012. Web. 21 Sept. 2012. <http://howardashman.com/blog/writing-the-words/>