Howard Ashman

Lyricist, playwright, and theater director Howard Ashman was most celebrated as part of the powerhouse songwriting team of Ashman and Menken with famed composer Alan Menken. The authors of such musicals as Broadway's Little Shop of Horrors (1982) and Disney's The Little Mermaid (1989) and Beauty and the Beast (1991), Ashman's Oscar- and Grammy-winning legacy was cut short by his death in 1991 at the age of 40.