Waking Sleeping Beauty Page #8

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all on the beach at Jeffrey's house.

And I remember being there

with Howard Ashman,

because after Little Mermaid,

Howard asked to go work

on this other thing he was desperate to do

for Disney called Aladdin,

at exactly the same time

Beauty and the Beast

was sort of falling apart in London.

Jeffrey buttonholed Howard,

as only he can,

and convinced Howard to write the songs

for Beauty and the Beast

even though Howard

didn't really want to.

WlSE:
Well, we got a phone call

from our boss.

"We want you to meet with Howard

and Alan and the whole creative team

and Beauty and the Beast is gonna

become a musical." We couldn't believe it.

So we ended up setting up shop

at the Residence Inn, upstate New York,

in Howard's neck of the woods.

And we started hashing stuff out

and throwing around ideas.

Initially it was very, very collegial.

It was very upbeat.

We were having a lot of fun.

But one of the things

that was a sticking point,

something that we didn't agree on,

was how to open the movie.

And Howard felt very passionately

that the movie should open

with a fully animated prologue

that showed the Beast in his prince form,

except he would be a little boy.

He'd be a naughty little boy.

And to Gary and I, we could not get past

this Eddie Munster image,

you know, of this hairy little kid

in Little Lord Fauntleroy pants.

To Howard, it seemed

incredibly moving and tragic.

TROUSDALE:

He was also very opinionated

and very articulate

and very intimidating.

And so we were scared of him.

It's like,"Okay, we gotta do this."

WlSE:
And so, you know, like the stupid,

naive, 26-year-old kid that I was,

I opened the meeting with,

"We think that the little Beast boy

is kind of a cheap shot."

And I think the word"cheap"

really set Howard off.

TROUSDALE:

And his mouth was a very tight line

and his eyes were getting

kind of bigger.

WlSE:

I just saw the clouds darken.

I just saw his face darken.

And he just ripped into us

like I've never been ripped into before.

And no one leapt to my defense,

may I just add.

Thank you very much.

And the Oscar goes to:

Alan Menken, Howard Ashman

for"Under the Sea"

from The Little Mermaid.

MENKEN:
Oscar night, we won at least

three Oscars between the two of us.

He said,"When we get back

to New York, we really have to talk."

And so that was, what, a Monday night.

I think he was back

by Thursday morning.

I came in and he just told me.

I said, you know,"What is it?"

And he said,"Well, I guess you know."

I didn't, or I didn't let myself.

He said,"l guess you know.

I'm HlV-positive."

I think, or he maybe said,

"I'm sick," or something.

And I-- It was not what I wanted to hear.

It seems like something falls out

a little bit there.

FRlEDMAN:

On,"sing you off to sleep"?

Or should I have been up on that?

MENKEN:
Yes.

MENKEN:

You're very strong.

Something needs to take off there--

Well, I know David had felt

that it had to build back in.

I mean, I remember you saying that.

That you didn't feel

you should jump right into tempo.

TROOB:
Right.

Do you want it to get faster sooner?

You're asking--

No.

He's building into it.

This is not a tempo question.

David--

I know.

The melody, it's neat. It's really pretty.

Oh, good, good.

So you don't have to scream

to get over it.

Well, we're separate tracks, aren't we?

True. I just if wonder

what you're hearing in your cans--

Yeah, I'll play it up and play it down.

We'll see which is better.

Great. Great.

And similarly we should get at least one

on this build section.

ROY:
He was an amazing influence

on everybody.

And I don't want to compare him

to Walt,

but on the other hand,

he had that kind of influence on everybody.

Before Beauty and the Beast was finished,

we threw a big dog-and-pony show

for the New York press where

we showed some clips from the film

and Alan sang some of the songs.

KATZENBERG:

I don't think we could have ever imagined

a more enraptured reception

to the movie and the songs.

And we all were very excited about

the idea of sharing this with Howard.

We wanted him to hear the news.

SCHNElDER:
And then we all jumped

in a cab and we raced downtown

to St. Vincent's.

We rushed from the press presentation,

which, as rough as it was,

was a huge success.

We were high from it

and we came into the cold shock

of Howard dying in a hospital room.

His mother pulled back the sheets

to show us

the Beauty and the Beast sweatshirt

that he was wearing.

He was 80 pounds, had lost his sight

and barely had a whisper of a voice.

We shared with him what happened

that day and how amazing it was.

And how he was there in every way.

Then, when it was time to leave,

we said our goodbyes.

Before I left, I bent over and whispered,

Beauty and the Beast

was gonna be a great success.

"Who'd have thought it?"l said.

And Howard lit up

and whispered,"l would have."

COOK:
Gary Kalkin, who was running

Publicity at the time, had a brilliant idea,

a scary idea, a dangerous idea

that perhaps an unfinished

work-in-progress screening

of Beauty and the Beast

could be a part

of the New York Film Festival.

So we actually screened

an unfinished version of the film

and I think we were all

on pins and needles.

We all were sitting there

holding our breath,

because we didn't know

what kind of reaction there would be.

And there was almost--

When the movie ended,

it was almost a pause

where you went,"1001, 1002,"

and then all of a sudden

the place just erupted.

WlSE:
I remember just being absolutely

slack-jawed, stunned, knocked over,

goggle-eyed with astonishment.

They applauded like they were

at a live Broadway show.

And I had never seen anything like that

in my life.

It was an emotional roller coaster

back home.

Beauty and the Beast

had thousands of drawings left to go.

Aladdin was grinding

through intense story changes

that left three of Howard's songs

on the cutting-room floor.

And Tim Rice was brought in

to finish up the lyrics on the new songs.

The work was intense,

the hours were long

and there was only one thing

that could stop it all: margaritas.

I tried very much to put myself

into this character.

It was a way for everybody

to decompress

after the long hours

and hideous meetings with Jeffrey.

By this time, we spent more time

with each other than with our families.

I mean, this was our family.

So we'd take a long break,

have some chips and salsa,

and with a little cheerleading from Peter,

we'd get back on the horse.

It's great.

This crew is the best crew. It's fabulous.

Not very sincere, was it?

WOMAN:
No.

HAHN:

Credit was always an issue,

and it seemed that everyone

was either taking credit

or not getting credit or not giving credit.

And the people who really deserved

the credit were being overlooked.

ROY:
You know, maybe I was

more sensitive to that in a way

than others might have been,

just because I went through it with Walt

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