Broadway and Hollywood composer Marc Shaiman on his new memoir, and being a “sore winner”

There’s a line from an old movie that says no man is a failure who has friends, and by that reasoning, meet the most successful man in town: Marc Shaiman, the legendary composer, Tony-, Grammy- and Emmy-winner, and a guy with friends like Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick and Steve Martin who’d brave a New York snowstorm to see him. 

The event, held a few weeks ago at the legendary New York City restaurant Sardi’s, was a book party for Shaiman’s new memoir, “Never Mind the Happy: Showbiz Stories from a Sore Winner” (Regalo Press) And with close to 50 years in the business, he has had a few things to be happy about.

For starters, Shaiman has scored some of the best-loved films of a generation (“Sleepless in Seattle,” “Sister Act,” “City Slickers”), and scored seven Oscar nominations along the way, one of them for the music from the movie “South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut.” He also played the young news theme writer in the 1987 film “Broadcast News.”

Shaiman wrote the music for the hit Broadway musical “Hairspray,” and won a Tony along with his writing partner (and former life partner) Scott Wittman.

And back at Sardi’s, it seemed everyone in the room had a favorite Marc Shaiman musical moment. 

“I loved Marc before I ever knew him,” said Lin-Manuel Miranda, “because I was the species of theater kid that memorized Billy Crystal’s musical montages on the Oscars. And many years later, I learned that Marc wrote those with Billy: It’s a wonderful night for Oscar, Oscar, Oscar, who will winnnnn?”

As the creator of some of the most memorable music on stage and screen, it’s no surprise that Shaiman is most at home behind a piano. “I love a piano,” he said. “I love that we have a piano here. It’s truly part of my body, and heart, and soul. It really is. Always has been.”

I asked, “Do you feel differently sitting at the piano than you do in other parts of your life?”

“I feel at home here, yeah,” Shaiman said. “And onstage. I’m a ham. I feel more at home onstage than really anywhere.”

Born 66 years ago in New Jersey, Shaiman was a piano prodigy who left home at 16, bound for the big city. “My mother said that people were telling her, ‘What do you mean, you’re letting him move to New York?’ But she said, ‘What am I gonna do, chain him to the piano?'”

After a few years playing in New York clubs, he became the music director for one of his idols, the legendary Bette Midler, before getting a job at “Saturday Night Live.”  “I got to co-create the Sweeney Sisters, which were two lounge-singing girls who did long medleys,” he said. “Talk about cheesy show business!”

He also met people there who would become lifelong friends, like Martin Short and Billy Crystal.  “That was what ‘Saturday Night Live’ gave me, those friendships. And then Billy Crystal is the one who introduced me to Rob Reiner.

“Working with Rob was just the greatest. Billy asked him on ‘When Harry Met Sally,’ ‘What are you thinking about for the music?’ And Rob said, ‘I need a guy who, like, knows every song in the American Songbook.’ And Billy mentioned, ‘Have I got a guy for you!'”

The finished film was a hit, in part because of Shaiman’s musical arrangements, and Reiner asked him to score his next project, the 1990 thriller “Misery,” even though that was uncharted territory for Shaiman. “Even my own agent said, ‘Rob, what makes you think Marc can do this?’ And Rob said, ‘Richard, talent is talent.’ I had to live up to his faith in me.”

Shaiman went on to score more than a dozen of Reiner’s films, a golden Hollywood winning streak that might’ve continued, until the unthinkable happened in December, when Rob Reiner and his wife, Michelle, were murdered in their home.

“It was Billy Crystal who texted me, ‘Call me,'” Shaiman recalled. “And I could just sense from the two words, something’s not right. And I called him, and he told me what had happened. And I was in shock. And I’m really still in shock.”

One of the scores Shaiman is most proud of was for the 1995 film “The American President.” Reiner made a film that was poignant and inspiring, and Shaiman’s music captures not only the spirit of the film, but of the dear friend who made it.

Shaiman says it’s been a rough couple of months, but he’s working through it.  

He calls himself a cynic. But he has an equally clear sense of just how lucky he’s been. And despite the title of his book – “Never Mind the Happy” – he says he has a lot to be happy about. “The way people kept saying, ‘Marc, don’t give up.’ And it’s true! I just had this endless amount of dreams coming true. I am proof that if you just keep showing up, keep saying yes, that everything you could’ve ever dreamt of can happen.”     

READ AN EXCERPT: “Never Mind the Happy” by Marc Shaiman

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Watch an extended interview with Marc Shaiman (Video)

     
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Story produced by John D’Amelio. Editor: Steven Tyler.