Picture the 91st Academy Awards in February 2019 when Bette Midler, accompanied by lyricist, composer and music producer Marc Shaiman (When Harry Met Sally; South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut; Hairspray on Broadway), is singing The Place Where Lost Things Go, the nominated song from the movie Mary Poppins Returns that Shaiman co-wrote with Scott Wittman. It’s Shaiman’s 6th and 7th Oscar nominations (also for Best Score). It’s a fantastic, unreal achievement for a musician, which almost didn’t happen.
Weeks before the telecast, the producers had decided to only air two of the five nominated songs (from A Star Is Born and Black Panther making the cut because of the star power of the performers). As Shaiman writes, “If showbiz puts you on a pedestal Tuesday, it’s only to have a better shot at your balls Thursday.”
The absurd, crushing and thrilling sequence of events perfectly captures what it’s like to toil in the Industry, even for a veteran. Shaiman, incensed on behalf of his fellow composers and no shrinking violet, called up his influential friends, including Bradley Cooper, and the producers made a swift reversal. As the opening to his Never Mind The Happy: Showbiz Stories from a Sore Winner, the scene sets the stage for the unbelievable, heartbreaking and joyous highs and lows that Shaiman recounts in his gossipy, breezy, delightful memoir.
Shaiman was born with a gift for music, and this was despite there being almost none in his New Jersey home save for an older sister’s Beatles album, a collection of Yiddish songs, and the rare parental purchase of the Mary Poppins soundtrack. When he was 6 or 7, after listening to his other sister’s piano lesson, Shaiman sat down at the piano and repeated it by ear. At an early age, he also had an understanding about being different from the other boys, and an intuition that he should keep that to himself. Musical theatre quickly took over his life, and a middle school-age Shaiman soon became the go-to accompanist for his local community theatre. It was also when he discovered Bette Midler’s albums (and the arrangements from her musical director Barry Manilow).
While still just 16, Shaiman’s nonplussed-but-loving parents gave him their blessing to move to Manhattan, which turned out to be a bashert decision. He picked up jobs at piano bars, working on Off-Off-Broadway shows, and crucially, met one of Midler’s backup singers. He became their musical director and in a matter of months, found himself in the same Los Angeles rehearsal space as Midler. When her new band didn’t know her song “No Jestering,” Shaiman was suddenly living out one of his fantasies, impressing Midler so much that she moved him into the guest room of her rented house to help her with her Copa Show.
Shaiman paid his dues working the cabaret circuit of the East Village in the late 70s and early 80s (frequented by Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat), and then the new musical director at SNL brought him in when the show needed a freelance piano player/arranger. The decade was transformative for Shaiman in ways that were shattering (waking up every day in his 20s checking the obituaries as AIDS devastated the community, ultimately losing more than 130 friends) and serendipitous. His SNL tenure overlapped with Billy Crystal, whom he would go on to work with many times, from writing for the Oscars when Crystal hosted, to composing the music for the comedian’s movies like City Slickers. Crystal in turn introduced him to Rob Reiner and Shaiman worked on some of the director’s biggest hits, including Misery, Sleepless In Seattle (as music supervisor, picking songs for the movie with screenwriter Nora Ephron) and A Few Good Men.
Arguably even more entertaining than his contributions to dozens of movies, shows and theatre productions of the last 40-plus years are Shaiman’s behind the scenes stories. There was the time he went to the Academy Awards with Trey Parker and Matt Stone when Blame Canada was nominated for Best Song, and the South Park creators, high on acid, were dressed as Jennifer Lopez and Gwyneth Paltrow, respectively. My favorite tale might be the night he threw a party after Patti Lupone made her debut at Carnegie Hall, and suddenly Stephen Sondheim was at his apartment. He and Sondheim smoked a heavy-duty joint and Shaiman thought he might have killed the very stoned, ashen-faced legend.
Shaiman’s stories and amazing career make Never Mind The Happy a thoroughly entertaining account that showbiz aficionados, musical theatre fans, and even everyday moviegoers will find pure, frothy fun. The book is available now wherever you get your books.