Distinguished composer/lyricist Alan Menken is responsible for penning many of the catchiest tunes from Disney features of the late '80s onward, including such chart-toppers as "Whole New World" (from Aladdin) and "Colors of the Wind" (Pocahontas). Early on in his career, his brief partnership with lyricist Howard Ashman (until Ashman's death in 1991) produced such film-musical classics as Little Shop of Horrors (1986), The Little Mermaid (1989), and Beauty and the Beast (1991). The latter won Menken Best Original Score and Best Original Song Academy Awards, as did 1992's Aladdin, which was begun with Ashman and completed with lyricist Tim Rice. Another productive writing partner followed in Stephen Schwartz, with whom Menken won best score and best song Oscars for 1995's Pocahontas. They garnered further nominations for projects including Disney's animated The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) and the live-action Enchanted (2007). Menken collected his 11th career Grammy Award for the song "I See the Light" from another Disney film, 2010's Tangled, this time with lyricist Glenn Slater. In the meantime, musicals like Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid had a second life on Broadway, and Menken won his first Tony Award for the 2012 Broadway adaptation of his 1992 film musical Newsies (with lyricist Jack Feldman). In 2020, Alan Menken joined the prestigiouss list of EGOT completists with his Daytime Emmy Award for the song "Waiting in the Wings" (with Glenn Slater) from Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure. A 2023 live-action film version of The Little Mermaid found Menken composing additional songs with Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Alan Irwin Menken was born in Manhattan on July 22, 1949 to a show business family; his father was dentist and piano player, and his mother was an actress, playwright, and stage director. Menken took piano and violin lessons from an early age and was entering composing contests for juniors by the age of nine. After graduating from New Rochelle High School, he enrolled at New York University, where he went on to complete a degree in musicology in 1971. He still wasn't sure he'd found his calling until he participated in the BMI Musical Theatre Workshop under Lehman Engel. Menken spent much of the period between 1974 and 1978 showcasing works he'd developed in the workshop, as well as acting as an accompanist, arranger, jingle writer, vocal coach, musical director for club acts, and Sesame Street songwriter. Some of his songs made their way into off-Broadway revues, and his own revue, Patch, Patch, Patch, played at New York's West Band Café in 1979.

Menken's breakthrough came with a 1979 musical adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater featuring a book and lyrics by Howard Ashman, music by Menken, and additional lyrics by Dennis Green. It opened at the WPA Theatre, then ran for six week off-Broadway. Ashman and Menken continued to write together, including unfinished projects and Little Shop of Horrors, based on the 1960 Roger Corman cult horror-comedy film. The adaptation, which required only nine performers including a puppeteer, opened at the WPA Theatre in 1982. After a five-year stay off-Broadway (setting the box-office record for an off-Broadway show at the time), it toured, then was itself adapted for the big screen. The film musical, directed by Frank Oz, opened in theaters in late 1986. Menken and Ashman's first Academy Award nomination was in the category of Best Original Song for "Mean Green Mother from Outer Space." It was the first Oscar-nominated song to contain profanity.

In 1987, an adaptation of the 1959 Mordecai Richler novel The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz that Menken wrote with lyricist David Spencer was produced in Philadelphia. With Ashman, he set to work on songs for Disney's The Little Mermaid, based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. At the time, it was the company's first major animated musical in over two decades. The film was a blockbuster success upon its arrival in movie theaters in 1989, and the songwriting duo earned an Oscar for their catchy calypso tune "Under the Sea," which beat out their own "Kiss the Girl." The pair notched two Grammys, as well: Best Recording for Children for the soundtrack, and Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television for "Under the Sea." Two years later, they won another Oscar with their title song for Beauty and the Beast. Their "Be Our Guest" and "Belle" were also nominated for Best Original Song. Another two Grammys followed for writing "Beauty and the Beast" and for the soundtrack album. Ashman and Menken had finished three songs for the 1992 Disney feature Aladdin when, having been diagnosed in 1988, Ashman died from AIDS on March 14, 1991. One of those songs, "Friend Like Me," earned Ashman and Menken a seventh Oscar nomination for Best Original Song. Tim Rice stepped in to complete work on Aladdin, including the lyrics for "A Whole New World." A radio version of the duet by Peabo Bryson and Regina Belle was released in late 1992 and topped the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1993.

In the meantime, Menken collaborated with lyricist Jack Feldman on songs for the live-action Disney film musical Newsies, which was overshadowed by Aladdin in 1992, and the WPA Theatre produced the Menken musical Weird Romance featuring lyrics by David Spencer. Another Menken musical, an adaptation of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol with lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, premiered at Madison Square Garden's Paramount Theater in 1994 and went on to become an annual Midtown holiday tradition. He made his Broadway debut with the Disney-produced stage adaptation of Beauty and the Beast; it opened in 1994 and ran for 13 years. Menken continued his streak with Disney films, teaming with Stephen Schwartz for 1995's Pocahontas. The writing team shared credit on wins for Best Original Musical or Comedy Score and Best Original Song (for "Colors on the Wind") at the next year's Oscar ceremonies. Just a year later, Menken and Schwartz were nominated for their score to Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), and Menken and David Zippel received an Oscar nomination for "Go the Distance" from 1997's Hercules, Menken's seventh Disney film musical.

Over the next several years, Menken's themes appeared in related Disney TV spinoffs, video games, and sequels like the 2000 straight-to-video animation The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea. Menken and Slater reteamed for six songs for Disney's animated Home on the Range in 2004 (Menken also composed the score), and in 2007, he and Schwartz wrote the songs for the Disney live-action princesses parody Enchanted, leading to no less than three Academy Award nominations for Best Original Song ("Happy Working Song," "So Close," and "That's How You Know"). It was followed by a Broadway adaptation of The Little Mermaid that opened in 2008 and resulted in a Tony nomination for best original score. Also in 2008, Menken was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Another hit animated Disney feature, 2010's Tangled, had its score composed by Menken and songs by Menken and Glenn Slater. Its soundtrack album provided Menken with his 11th Grammy when he and Slater won Best Song Written for Visual Media for "I See the Light," which also garnered an Oscar nomination.

In 2011, Menken's 2006 stage-musical version of the 1992 film Sister Act (with Slater as lyricist) finally opened on Broadway, resulting in another Tony nomination for score. He took home his first Tony Award for the 2012 Broadway adaptation of Newsies. It closed after 1,004 performances in 2014 and was quickly followed by a national tour. Meanwhile, the composer stepped out on Disney to work on songs with Tim Rice for the animated film Jock (2011) and to compose the score for live-action Snow White sendup Mirror Mirror (2012). A Disney stage adaptation of Aladdin was next up for Menken, opening on Broadway in 2014. It led to a Tony nomination for score co-credited to Menken, Howard Ashman, Tim Rice, and Chad Beguelin, who wrote the book and additional lyrics for the stage version.

Another animated comedy, 2016's Sausage Party, found Menken collaborating with Christopher Lennertz on the score and Glenn Slater and others on the song "The Great Beyond." That year, a staged concert of God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater was performed at New York City Center, with the cast -- which included Skylar Astin and James Earl Jones -- producing the musicals' first studio recording in 2017. Menken reteamed with Rice to write an additional three songs for a live-action film version of Beauty and the Beast, which was also released in 2017. A live-action movie adaption of Aladdin followed in 2019. It featured a new song, "Speechless," by Menken with Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. The follow year, Menken completed the prized EGOT by winning an Emmy with Slater for "Waiting in the Wings" from an episode of Tangled: The Series.

Menken and Schwartz then provided songs for the sequel to Enchanted, 2022's Disenchanted, and 2023 found Menken as productive as ever with the release of a filmed version of Aladdin: The Broadway Musical, a live-action film adaptation of The Little Mermaid -- featuring Menken-Ashman classics as well as new songs with lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda -- and the CGI fantasy film Spellbound, which featured a score and songs by Menken with help from Slater. ~ Marcy Donelson

Already one of the most popular family and children's film companies, Disney entered the music industry in 1949 with the formation of the Walt Disney Music Company, which published the music from the studio's films, beginning with the following year's Cinderella. In the '50s, Disney also developed their own music labels, including Disneyland Records, which offered Disney soundtracks, stories and songs from The Mickey Mouse Club, and Buena Vista, which released songs by Disney stars such as Fess Parker, Annette Funicello and Darlene Gillespie, as well as singles from the studio's films. In 1989, Disney consolidated the various imprints into one label, Walt Disney Records, which reissued classic soundtracks and released read-a-long and sing-a-long collections, compilations of old and new Disney songs and soundtracks to contemporary Disney films, many of which were multi-platinum successes such as The Lion King, Beauty & the Beast, Aladdin and The Little Mermaid. The company's cinematic and musical success continued into the new millennium, with acquisitions of four big properties -- Pixar, The Muppets, Marvel, and Star Wars -- leading the way. ~ Heather Phares