The following is an original production of AZPM News.

(Marc) Vet Midler, kind of like Norma Desmond in "Sunset Boulevard" said, "You there!"

And I actually got to walk to a stage and say, "Oh, Miss Midler, I know every note of every song of every album.

Please let me play for you."

My dream, my daydream literally came true.

This is Speaking Personally, filmed on location at the Paul and Alice Baker Center for Public Media.

(Mark) Hello, thanks for joining us.

My name is Mark McLemore and I'm welcoming very special guests to the show.

A composer, a songwriter and Bon Vivant joining me now, Marc Shaiman.

Hello, Marc.

Welcome to Tucson.

(Marc) Thank you.

Thank you.

Mark with a K.

(Mark) Yeah, Marc with a C. And in the wild, we can sometimes be natural enemies, but I think we've worked it out.

(Marc) All right.

(Mark) So what brings you to Tucson this weekend?

(Marc) I'm with the Festival of Books.

I believe that's where I'm going, right?

The Festival of Books, because I've written a memoir all about me and my life and my brilliant career and what it's been like.

And so I've been traveling the country talking about myself.

Joan Crawford is in a movie called "Torch Song".

And she has a line where she says, "If the talk's about me, I'll buy a ticket."

So I'm sort of living like her right now, just going everywhere talking about myself endlessly.

I'm sick of myself.

Ask me about me.

(Mark) Well, I would like to know what you think you learned about yourself from writing this memoir.

(Marc) Well, I certainly learned, which I kind of always knew, but how grateful I should be about the things that have happened to me in my life and the amazing amount of lucky breaks I've had and constantly being in the right place at the right time.

And so, yes, I was gifted with the talent, but I've also was gifted with this fairy-tale-like existence of the things that I dreamed of doing as a kid or as a teenager started happening for me even before I turned 18.

I was already in New York working.

So it's been a crazy, crazy "journey," as people like to say nowadays.

I can't believe I just said "journey."

I said the J word.

(Mark) It comes up.

(Marc) But that's, you know, and it's been amazing.

I never, while I was writing, I didn't realize I was writing an inspirational book.

But as I've been talking about it and seeing the looks on people's faces, I realize it is inspirational to think that all these dreams can come true for someone.

And there you go.

(Mark) Well, you're well known as someone who loves Broadway and the American Songbook.

But what about a film score that you connected with when you were young before you even knew that scoring films?

Was even a possibility for yourself.

Can you cite one though that made a connection?

(Marc) I was asked about like what was the first piece of music that maybe I had an emotional feeling towards.

And it was for the most part, it was the Mary Poppin soundtrack that came out in 1964.

I was four years old and that's all I listened to for years and years.

But I also remember in the New York metropolitan area, there was a show called the "Million Dollar Movie".

Maybe they had them all around the country.

But in New York, the opening was, I found out later, was the theme to "Gone With The Wind".

[ SINGING ] And so that was beautiful.

But the imagery that they used in the opening was all black and white photography.

Very Edward Hopper, very lonely New York at night, deserted New York at night.

And there was one shot of a phone off the hook in a payphone.

Does anyone remember what a payphone is?

So there was a shot, this lonely shot of the phone swinging back and forth in the payphone.

And I just remember as a kid always being so moved by that lonely, evocative image with this incredible music being played.

So I think that is where I really fell in love with movie scores.

But I didn't follow that.

I wanted to write for Broadway and and I kind of, the movie scoring fell in my lap.

(Mark) Who was the first person that you recall who really believed in you and supported your talent?

(Marc) I would say my parents, my piano teacher, my music teacher in junior high school.

Oh, I had great mentors.

I had a woman who The first time I had a moment where people recognized that I had something special in my hands was I went with a friend to audition.

They were putting on the "Sound of Music" in the summer in my town.

These two women in my township recognized that my high school and junior highs weren't putting on musicals.

And so they put on their own version of the summer musical theater workshop.

And they were putting on the "Sound of Music".

And I went with a friend and I asked if I could audition to play the piano.

Because in my elementary school there was no music program.

So no one had ever heard me play except for my aunts and uncles when they would come over.

So the woman there named Judy Cole, she was the director, and she said, "Well there's the piano kid, go play."

So I went over to the piano and it was up against the stage, an upright piano.

And I don't remember what I played, but I remember when I finished and turned around.

Everyone who'd been milling about talking were all silently just staring at me like a big semicircle.

And I liked the attention.

And from that moment on that was it.

My schoolwork went out the window and I was just musical theater.

And then that woman Judy who was directing the kids, then she took me around to adult community theater.

That almost sounds dirty.

But a community theater with adults.

And at first all the adults said, "Judy, are you crazy?"

Because I looked like a pimple on two legs.

But I had show business in my hands.

And so she said, "Marc, go to the piano."

And I sight read the overture to "Funny Girl".

And all the adults said, "Okay."

And I just did one show after another.

And so Judy and another man named Norman, who also directed a lot of these community theater shows.

They just believed in me and I believed in them and it was all fantastic.

And I did almost every show in the golden age of musicals in the space of three years.

And my parents saw that I was going out every night.

And I had a work ethic.

And I loved what I was doing and I was good at it.

And so when I told them that I found out you can take a test and get a diploma when you turn 16.

I snuck into that place and took it when I was 15.

I can't believe I was allowed.

But I found out I had a diploma to show my parents the day I turned 16.

You can interrupt me at any time.

You can tell I'll just keep going and going and going.

(Mark) I want to talk about Bette Midler.

(Marc) Okay.

(Mark) So before you even met her, I got the opportunity to work with her.

(Marc) I went from the "Mary Poppins" soundtrack to Bette Midler Records when her first two albums came out.

My music teacher in junior high as a present for, a thank you present for helping him with the talent shows.

Gave me Bette Midler's first two albums.

And this was when "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" was on the radio.

And she, I just couldn't believe it.

On my AM radio was three part harmony.

In 1940's big band style.

My mind was blown.

I was so obsessed with her.

And I had her posters on my wall.

And I dreamed of someday meeting her, you know.

And I lifted some money from my father's wallet.

And I cut school one day.

And I went to New York.

Because I lived in New Jersey.

I was only like 55 minutes from Manhattan.

So I took the bus to New York.

And I went to see Bette Midler in concert on Broadway.

And I had a little daydream that I would go run down the aisle and say, "Oh Miss Midler, I know every note of every song on every record.

Please let me play for you."

Cut to, I'm trying to make a long story short.

When I turned 16 that summer, I met some friends and went to New York just to hang out.

And met some other friends from New Jersey.

We stepped into a little bar that was there.

I shouldn't have been in there.

I was only 16.

But it was 4:30 in the afternoon.

No one was in there and there was a piano.

So I went to play the piano.

And the bartender was like out of a 1930's movie.

He stopped and said, "Hey kid, you're good."

He went next door.

There was a comedy group that wanted a funnier piano player than what they had.

I got the job both playing at the bar and with the comedy review.

And the guy who was directing the comedy review was named Scott Whitman, who became my co-lyrisist and my life partner for many decades.

He lived across the hall from one of Bette Midler's backup singers.

That's the point I was trying to make.

And so there I was, staying with him on the weekends to play for his comedy review.

And Bette Midler's backup singer was across the hall and her backup girls, they're called the Harlettes.

And they decided, "Hey, let's do our own act when we're not on the road with Bette."

And there I was, knowing the kind of harmony they would want.

The proximity was really good.

I was right across the hall and I worked for nothing.

I was at the point 17.

And their act was a big hit and Bette said, "Girls, come back on the road with me on my next tour and I'll let you open my show."

So I was flown to L.A.

for one day to teach Bette Midler's band the Harlettes material, which I did.

And then I sat in the back of the rehearsal studio and I watched them rehearsing up on the stage and in walked Bette Midler.

And I was just, you know, a little fantasy.

"Oh my God, I'm having my own private Bette Midler concert."

And she's rehearsing with the band.

And then she called out a song to the band that was from her third album.

And they didn't have music for it on their stands.

And they were like, "We don't know that song."

And one of the Harlettes went over to Bette and said, "You see him?"

[ INAUDIBLE ] And so Bette Midler, kind of like Norma Desmond and Sunset Boulevard, said, "You there!"

She said, "Can you play 'No Gesturing'?"

And I actually got to walk to a stage and say, "Oh, Miss Midler, I know every note of every song of every album.

Please let me play for you."

My dream, my daydream literally came true.

And it's been like that ever since.

(Mark) Approx... [LAUGHS ] Take a deep breath.

Approximately how long did your association with Bette Midler continue?

(Marc) Right up until this morning.

I can show you the text.

(Mark) She fired you this morning?

(Marc) No, we're still great friends.

We're like brother and sister.

From that moment when I played the song that she wanted the band to play, she kind of was like, "Stick around, I could use you."

So my flight to New York was postponed.

And instead of putting me in a hotel because she's a frugal gal, she put me in her guest room.

And I'm not talking about like a guest house in the backyard or... No, I was living down the hall with Bette like brother and sister.

And that's where our brother-sister relationship was born and still exists to this day.

And as you may know from your notes, I've worked with her all these 50-some years, including, you know, finally I really earned my stripes because I'm the guy that brought her the "Wind Beneath My Wings".

So that I really earned my stripes even though I didn't receive any royalties.

(Mark) Yeah, that one's quite a stripe though, definitely.

And going from being a fan and knowing that you had the talent to actually developing the chops, what kind of a transformation was it for you?

When did you feel like you could do this, that this was going to be your future, playing music constantly?

(Marc) That's the thing I was just talking with someone just yesterday about how blessed I was to always know what I was going to do and always had it in me to do it.

And the confidence, the chutzpah, that I never really doubted it or second guessed that I could do it Call that either being pompous or just really lucky that I had this faith in myself.

(Mark) The ability to remember so many lyrics, I mean that's something I find personally very impressive about you.

(Marc) Not any longer.

I've gotten old.

I can't remember anything.

I sing songs now, like at these book events, and I have to have my own lyrics on an iPad in front of me or else I won't get through it.

(Mark) Oh really?

But at that point, yes.

I somehow learned every song.

I don't know how.

So when I went to meet with Rob Reiner, when Billy Crystal introduced me to Rob Reiner for "When Harry Met Sally", and I went to him with the idea that the song "I Could Write a Book" would fit "When Harry Met Sally", because the last two lyrics of this great Rodgers and Hart song is, [ SINGING ] ♪ Then the world discovers as my book ends how to make two lovers of friends.

♪ So I was like, "Rob, isn't that perfect for the movie?"

He was like, "You're hired!"

So that began my relationship there.

(Mark) Since we lost Rob and his wife Michelle, so many wonderful things have been said about him.

So many people have touching stories and just simple stories about how he would have lunch with the crew and the actors.

Some directors don't do that, you know?

What's something that you think you learned about working on a film set that you would say you learned specifically from Rob Reiner?

(Marc) Well, my job is away from the film set.

Although I did go visit the film sets often, I was lucky enough that my parents once came to visit me in L.A.

And Rob was filming "A Few Good Men", and we went to the set, and it was the day Jack Nicholson was doing the big, "You can't handle the truth" scene.

So we got to watch that over and over again.

Unbelievable.

But with Rob, it was all about the hang.

H-A-N-G.

Once everyone realizes everyone's got the talent to do what they're to do, then it's about, you know, having a great time with the people you're working with.

My memories of working with Rob were all about us sitting around schmoozing, laughing, telling jokes, telling stories, finishing each other's jokes and stories.

And then I, oh yeah, at some point I went to the piano and played him what I was working on.

But that's like the dimmer memory.

It's the companionship, the friendship that I will always remember.

(Mark) Another film set that I know you were on was "Down With Love".

(Marc) We had a great time working on that movie, especially that video.

Phenomenal.

Ewan McGregor was so sweet.

I have this memory in my head when Ewan McGregor and Renee Zellweger came over to my studio to record their vocals.

And it was just the beginning where they started having these portable vocal booths.

It was called, I think, The Whisper Room.

But it was really like a sauna because there was no air in there.

So poor Ewan McGregor was stuck in this.

But there was just one little window looking out.

And I just have this memory of him looking out the window.

And he just was like a little boy.

It was just the sweetest smile.

So that's my image of him always.

We had a great time.

Well, working with Rob Reiner, you certainly got your chance to play in many different genres.

And as a big fan of horror and suspense movies, I love, of course, Alfred Hitchcock's work.

And I can't help but notice the score for "Misery" having a little touch of Bernard Hermon in there.

As much as I could possibly, you know, I couldn't touch the hem of his garment.

But yeah, you know, that was such a shock.

I did "When Harry Met Sally" with Rob, of course, with Harry Connick Jr.

being our main performer and pianist in the movie.

Can he play?

Can he play?

Oh, my God.

He's unbelievable.

And then Rob called and said, "Hey, buddy, you want to do my next movie?

It's a psychological thriller called Misery."

And I was like, "Why does he think I could do that?"

That was, you know, we were talking earlier about me always thinking, "Well, I could do that."

That morning I was a little like, "I don't know if I could do that."

I mean, if he had asked me to work on a movie about a Broadway songwriter, you know, or Vaudeville, I'd be, "I'm your guy, but a psychological thriller in a Hitchcockian way."

I was like, "I don't know."

And I had just gotten my agent.

And even my agent, when he had to call Rob to negotiate, my agent, Richard, said, "Rob, why do you think Mark can do this?"

And Rob said, "Richard, talent is talent."

And so he had this faith in me, so I just had to live up to his faith in me.

And, you know, in movies they put temp scores into movies when they're editing it and when they're showing it to preview it before the— because the score is the last thing that happens on a movie, because it has to be, you know, 30 frames per second.

There's mathematical decisions every single moment.

And so they put, you know, pre-existing music into the movies, which becomes a great double-edge sword for a composer, because people fall in love with the temp score.

In this case, it was great for me, because they filled it with a lot of Jerry Goldsmith.

Great, great film score.

And I don't have the talent to steal from Jerry Goldsmith, but I had enough talent to listen and learn, and it was like school.

I was like, "Oh, I can hear the woodwinds can be doing this, and the low strings can be doing that, and the French horns can be there going, "Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh."

Seems dirty.

But so I learned a lot listening to that, and I did my best, you know, to learn.

And lo and behold, it worked out.

And then, Rob, you know, when you speak of genre, I mean, it was Rob who just gave me one chance after another, because he just loved to hop, skip, and jump from genre to genre on his movies.

So I had a run of, like, "When Harry Met Sally", "Misery", "A Few Good Men", "The American President", I just got to work in all different kinds of styles, more so than with any other director or producer.

Scott Rudin was a producer I worked with a lot who also afforded me an incredible amount of the kind of things I was just meant to do, like the "Sister Act" and the "First Wives Club", the "The Addams Family", movies that had a great theatricality to them.

So I was really well suited for those.

(Mark) I also think of "City Slickers", where you really captured that Americana feel, a little Bernstein in there this time.

(Marc) Yeah, Billy Crystal once again got me that job.

I mean, the director eventually had to hire me.

It was amazing.

I did "Misery", "City Slickers", and "The Addams Family", all with producers hiring me without having heard a note of my own compositional skills.

But suddenly I just had the word about me was out, and people were, I was suddenly like, I don't know, they were hiring me.

And so those three movies, they all had just incredible faith.

(Mark) Well, "The Addams Family", of course, is the music of Vic Mizzi.

It's synonymous with the television version of the show.

How did you work with adapting that or absorbing that to create the film scores?

(Marc) Well, I love arranging.

Arranging and orchestrating is something I, it's how I got into all this with my work with Bette Midler as an arranger.

And work with this gentleman who hooked me up with you today, Bodan Zachary, who we have a mutual friend named Zora Rasmussen in New York.

And I was her accompanist and her arranger.

And so it was through arranging that I really learned how to compose.

Because arranging is, in a way, is composing.

You have an existing song, but you have to figure out what are some new chords I can put to it.

Or just how do you make an evocative sound?

Nelson Riddle, being the king who created it with his Frank Sinatra records, I could teach a course on like Nelson Riddle's intros for Frank Sinatra.

Just how in eight bars he sets a tone in a mood.

(Mark) Swelling strings.

(Marc) I can't remember your question.

I keep talking and talking and what we're- (Mark) We're talking about Vic Mizzi.

(Marc) Vic Mizzi!

So yeah, I love the idea that I already get to make use of the TV theme.

I wasn't going to at all be like, I'm not going to make use of that TV theme.

How dare you?

And I was like, no.

If it wasn't for the TV theme, no one would be making a movie of "The Addams Family".

(Mark) People would riot if they went to see it.

(Marc) So I loved figuring it out.

You know, I made it a bit more gothic.

It's often more in three, four times.

And especially in the sequel, "The Addams Family Values", where I got to do this big tango that Gomez and Morticia do, where it was totally this love fest between my Morticia's theme and Vic Mizzi's TV theme.

Just going back and forth between each other.

I love doing that.

(Mark) Yeah.

Do you have a favorite?

Your primary instrument is the piano.

But do you have a favorite part of the orchestra to write for?

Is there something like maybe percussion or tuba or harp that has really floated your boat?

(Marc) I orchestrate by playing it on the keyboard, which is not always good.

You have to learn how to orchestrate for that section and not just what you can do because you can play it on the keyboard.

Often, though, I allow my keyboard abilities to have me write maybe too much for timpani.

It's been said that I often use timpani as a melodic instrument.

I just love that timpani.

It's just who invented the timpani?

God bless him.

What a thing.

What a sound it makes.

You know, there's nothing like it.

So I do love the timpani.

But I love them all.

I mean, there's nothing like an oboe when you need an oboe.

And then, of course, when you have a string section playing something you've written, there's no greater thrill.

(Mark) Is this your first time attending something like the Tucson Festival of Books?

(Marc) Well, in the last few months I've been at book events.

But yeah, I guess this is the first kind of festival of books.

Will we... shall we all be dressed like Game of Thrones?

Is it like that?

(Mark) If it pleases you.

(Marc) Searching on a big turkey leg.

The Festival of Books.

(Mark) It's a pretty big to-do.

And I always think about the... I don't know if you found the writing of your book to be something that was a very solitary journey for you to take.

Some writers are definitely that way.

And so they create the book alone in their office and then they go to something like the festival.

And suddenly they're in a room with hundreds or even thousands of people who have all already read their minds.

Was writing your book, which I want to get the title right, "Nevermind, Happy."

Was it a solitary type situation for you, writing it?

Were you looking at a lot of old photographs and sort of tracing your history through those means?

(Marc) Exactly.

I mean, how else could it not be solitary?

Are there people who write a book in a big party?

"Hey everyone, come on over and watch me sit at my laptop and write a book."

Even my narcissism won't go to that extent.

But film scoring is also a solitary kind of thing.

Working on a Broadway musical is not a solitary thing.

That's wonderful.

That's a wonderful communal kind of thing.

So yeah, I discovered one good thing about the internet.

One good thing is that I discovered newspapers.com.

And I put my name into it and said, like, "Mark Shaiman, New Jersey, 1972-78."

And like every article that was about every community theater show, the review, and then there was like a few articles on me and my youth in New Jersey about, "Young whippersnapper can play in the dark."

So I was able to piece it all together.

And then I put in my name and Manhattan in the late 70s and 80s and all those cabaret acts I worked in.

All the reviews came up.

And so I was able to bathe in some narcissistic bath water for a few weeks of kind of remembering, "Oh yeah, I forgot about that and that and this and that."

And that did help spur.

And then a lot of it is stories I've been telling my whole life, the kind of stories that make people say to me, "You should write a book one day."

And so finally one day I decided, "I guess I will."

And then I just actually had a kind of great time writing it.

The hard part was editing it.

(Mark) You mentioned how composing for film is also a solitary endeavor, but then you take the film, you show it to people and suddenly you get this huge response.

Are there any movie premieres that you remember attending where the audience surprised or gratified you by their response to your work?

Most definitely.

The second you said that I thought of these, "Premier for South Park, Bigger, Longer and Uncut," the South Park movie, was at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, legendary iconic theatre in Hollywood, jam-packed.

And that movie got such a reaction.

People were screaming, laughing and screaming and banging their feet and practically tearing the seats up.

And I was like, "I will never watch this movie again.

I don't want anything to ever... Why would I want anything but this experience?"

And I truthfully, even if I channel hopped over the years, I would quickly channel hop past it.

I didn't want to watch it just sitting in my living room by myself.

Finally on its 20th anniversary I was asked to go to a screening in Brooklyn for its 20th anniversary and to do a talk afterwards.

That was the first time I'd watched that movie from beginning to end again since that premiere.

And luckily there in Brooklyn 20 years later it had a pretty much the same reaction, but nothing will compare to that night at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

(Mark) And seeing yourself animated South Park style.

(Marc) It was an honor just to be animated.

(Mark) I think it's usually nominated, but I like that.

(Marc) That was a little play on words, you see.

(Mark) Very good.

Are there any stones that are left unturned for you?

(Marc) Like tombstone?

The truth is, Lockwood, am I allowed to say no?

I'm very the luckiest guy on earth.

Even though I complain and I complain and I'm miserable.

That's the name of my book, Never Mind the Happy.

That comes from my sister called my mother one New Year's Day and said, "Ma, I want to be the first to wish you a happy and healthy new year."

And my mother said, "Never mind the happy!"

So that's what's coursing through my blood.

But when I talk about the book, I do realize how effing lucky I've been and how blessed and how thankful I need to be and grateful that I have really gotten to do just about everything I ever could want to do.

And anything from here on in is just icing on the cake if I get to do anything else.

And even if I don't, the idea of the couch and Jeopardy and my husband, it's okay with me.

Well, we hear people say so often how we can't have nice things anymore, you know.

But I want to thank you for giving us so many nice things over all these years.

(Marc) That's sweet.

Thank you.

(Mark) Marc Shaiman, it's been a pleasure getting to know you.

Have a great time at the Tucson Festival of Books.

(Marc) [ SINGING ]: The festival!

We're going to the festival!

(Mark) You could compose the theme song.

They don't have one.

(Marc) Yeah, I have to perform tonight at their gala.

Maybe between now and then I should write the Festival of Books.

(Mark) I think you're on to something.

♪ OUTRO MUSIC ♪