How Howard Ashman Gave Ariel Her Voice In "The Little Mermaid”

Howard Ashman was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1950. After studying at Goddard College, he earned his MFA from Indiana University, then moved to New York, where he began a career in publishing. Following his lifelong passion for theater, Ashman next co-founded the Workshop of the Players Art Foundation, Inc., an off Broadway theater. It was at the WPA that Ashman would begin to collaborate with composer Alan Menken, who remained his music partner throughout his future years at Disney. The two first created a successful musical adaptation of the Kurt Vonnegut novel, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, which opened in 1979. They continued their momentum with another musical, Little Shop of Horrors, which was adapted from the 1960 dark comedy by director Roger Corman. 

This production was a hit for Ashman and Menken, and in 1986 Frank Oz directed a motion picture version of the play, with its screenplay written by Ashman. The film resulted in Ashman and Menken receiving their first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Song for "Mean Green Mother From Outer Space."

Following the success of Little Shop, Ashman's next project was a Broadway musical adaptation of the 1975 film, Smile, which he wrote, directed, and created music for in collaboration with Marvin Hamlisch. Despite being remembered by history as a well-loved piece of musical theater, Smile received negative critical reviews upon its opening in 1986, and only ran for just over a month. This setback was difficult for Ashman, and it made him open to the idea of departing from New York's Broadway scene. 

"It was really devastating," Nancy Parent, a friend and colleague of Ashman, said in "Howard," a 2018 documentary on Ashman's life and work by director Don Hahn. "I think [Ashman] felt maybe ashamed, and he needed to get away and be out of town and not be seen by anybody."

Jeffrey Katzenberg, the then-head of Walt Disney Studios, had been communicating with Ashman at this time in hopes of convincing him to travel to Los Angeles and contribute to Disney's upcoming animation projects. A string of animated Disney films throughout the '70s and '80s had failed to reach the  commercial success of the studio's earlier ventures, and Katzenberg felt strongly that Ashman's talents would produce fruitful results for Disney.

In a letter dated April 8, 1986, Katzenberg wrote to Ashman: "The combination of Howard Ashman's talent and the Walt Disney name is a home run waiting to happen."

Prior to Katzenberg's offer, Ashman wrote the lyrics for a song on the soundtrack of Oliver & Company in 1988. The first major project handed to Ashman once he joined the Disney team was The Little Mermaid, an animated adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen story that marked Disney's first animated fairy tale in 30 years. The last fairy tale feature Disney had made prior to this was Sleeping Beauty, which was released in 1959.

As he worked on The Little Mermaid, Ashman spoke about the joy of revisiting  fairy tales he loved as a child during an interview clip shown in Howard. 

"I grew up on Pinocchio and Peter Pan, and ... to make something that fits comfortably on the shelf with those [fairy tales], I mean, ... what a difficult thing to do, but what a great thing to try to do," Ashman said before adding, "The last great place to do Broadway musicals is in animation. It's a whole other world."

In addition to providing the lyrics for the Little Mermaid score, Ashman made some key decisions regarding the film's main characters. After being presented with numerous possible designs for the character of Ursula, Ashman gravitated towards the drawing ultimately used for the film, which was based off drag queen personality, Divine. In addition, it was Ashman's idea to make the character Sebastian the crab Jamaican, which opened up Ashman and Menken's score to include calypso sounds. Menken used this as part of the foundation for the film's music, along with melodies that embody the flow of water, he later said.

"As you write the songs, you're sort of embedding threads, stylistic threads into the score. A lot of them are very specific," Menken said in a 2021 interview for Score: The Podcast with Epicleff Media. "You know, having a calypso thread for Sebastian is a huge color to pull through the rest of the score. Having that moving theme [music] for Ariel ... which is basically the flow of water, it embeds something that's memorable that you put up right at the top of the story and it carries you through the entire picture."

When Jodi Benson was hired to voice the lead role of Ariel, her career had predominantly consisted of performing for the stage, and she and Ashman had previously worked together on Smile. In a 2020 interview with DisneyD23, Benson said the transition from singing on stage to recording in a studio for Little Mermaid was a tough one for her. 

"I was absolutely petrified because I'd never been behind a microphone before," Benson said. "I really struggled with insecurity and [Ashman] was a cheerleader, you know, he just pulled everything out of me to be able to do this." 

Benson even suggested to Ashman that they find another actress to voice the part of Ariel, and she nearly walked away from the project. Ashman's belief in Benson's talent, however, convinced her to see it through, and resulted in her contributing an unforgettable performance as Ariel.

"At one point, I told [Howard], 'I can't do this. I think they got the wrong girl ... There's a million people that can do this that know what the heck they're doing,'" Benson said. "He [was] like, ... 'You've got this. You can do this.'"

"There'd be no Ariel [without him]. It's all Howard...People say, 'Oh I love Ariel.' I'm like, 'Then you love Howard,' because Ariel...is who Howard is," Benson added.

After watching a preview of the scene where Ariel sings "Part of Your World" and expresses her desire to become human, Katzenberg wanted to remove the ballad from the film, fearing that it was too slow-paced to keep the attention of young viewers.

"I said to everybody, 'I think you really ought to think about cutting that song out of the movie,'" Katzenberg said in Howard. "And you know, Howard Ashman said, 'Over my dead body.'"

Former Disney Music Executive Chris Montan discussed Ashman's part in fighting to keep the song in the film when interviewed in the documentary. "Howard was very smart and said, 'Look, these movies launch off this kind of a song. Every one of the [Disney] movies had some version of it, whether it's "When You Wish Upon A Star," or whatever example you want to choose,'" Montan said. "'It may be temporarily kind of hard to make work, but in the big picture, you have to have this song. You have to have those ... moments.'"

In an archived interview, Ashman emphasized the importance of including an impassioned song like "Part of Your World" in a musical to get an audience invested in the protagonist's story.

"In almost every musical ever written, there's a place, it's usually about the third song of the evening, sometimes it's the second, sometimes it's the fourth, but it's quite early, and the leading lady usually sits down on something ... and sings about what she wants in life," Ashman said. "And the audience falls in love with her and then roots for her to get it for the rest of the night."

Ultimately, Ashman's determination in advocating to keep the song prevailed, and his direction combined with Benson's vocal skills resulted in "Part of Your World" being one of the most memorable moments of The Little Mermaid.

Roy E. Disney, the former Disney Company Vice Chairman and nephew of Walt Disney, likened the level of respect colleagues had for Ashman to his uncle in an interview clip from Howard. "I don't want to compare him to Walt, but, on the other hand, he had that kind of influence on everybody. It was a remarkable amount of influence. If Howard said it, you know, that was gospel," Disney said.

When it was released in November 1989, The Little Mermaid earned over $6 million at the domestic box office, and since has grossed more than $200 million worldwide. Critics heavily praised Ashman and Menken's music in the film, and it even drew comparisons to foundational Disney animated features.

"The Little Mermaid contains some of the best Disney music since the glory days," film critic Roger Ebert wrote when reviewing the movie upon its 1989 release. "Here at last, once again, is the kind of liberating, original, joyful Disney animation that we all remember from Snow White, Pinocchio and the other first-generation classics."

At the 1990 Academy Awards, Ashman and Menken won an Oscar for Best Original Song for "Under The Sea," and Menken additionally won an Oscar for Best Original Score.

As plans for Disney's next animated venture, Beauty and the Beast, moved forward, Ashman and Menken again teamed up to write music for the film. Ashman additionally served as an executive producer of the movie.

During production of The Little Mermaid, Ashman had discovered that he was HIV positive. Although ill, he continued to work throughout the production of Beauty and the Beast, and three songs with lyrics by Ashman were included in the score for Aladdin. Sadly, he would never get to see either film completed, as he passed away from complications of AIDS in March 1991, eight months before Beauty and the Beast was released, and nearly two years before Aladdin hit theaters. In the end credits of Beauty and the Beast, Ashman was honored with the message, "To our friend, Howard, who gave a mermaid her voice and a beast his soul, we will be forever grateful."

At the 1992 Academy Awards ceremony, Ashman and Menken were awarded an Oscar for Best Original Song for Beauty And The Beast. Bill Lauch, Ashman's partner, accepted the award on his behalf.

When The Little Mermaid crew members went on a press tour to promote the animated movie's release, they watched a parade with actors portraying characters from the film at one of the Disney parks. This gave Ashman a glimpse at the longevity his work would hold for years to come.

"I do remember Howard talking, and he just said, 'You know, when I saw this parade, I burst into tears...' And he said, '...I just had the feeling this would live on after me,'" John Musker, one of the directors of The Little Mermaid, said in Howard.  

In 2016, a live-action version of the 1989 animated film was reported to be in the works at Disney. Over four years later, in December 2020, the cast list of the film was revealed. The star-studded cast includes Halle Bailey as Ariel, Daveed Diggs as Sebastian, Melissa McCarthy as Ursula, and Javier Bardem as King Triton. 

Lin-Manuel Miranda, a lifelong Little Mermaid fan, and Menken have teamed up to write new music for the movie, which will also include songs from the original score. In an interview from June 2021, Miranda cited Ashman as a pivotal source of inspiration in his career.

"I think that Howard Ashman is as responsible for me talking to you as anyone in my life," Miranda told Collider. "Little Mermaid was the first time I felt truly transported in the movies. I spent fourth grade jumping on my desk singing 'Under the Sea.' But the other really big lesson in Howard Ashman's work was he brought not just his incredible lyric writing and Alan Menken's incredible songwriting, but his sense of musical structure and his incredible storytelling sense. And that has been a model ... that's the real legacy of Howard Ashman I think, to me, is that he brought so many of the incredible musical theater techniques to animated film."