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Visit blueapron.com/slash terms for more. Eeeeee. He's written soundtracks for some of our most beloved movies, T V shows, and musicals. When Harry Met Sally, Sister Act, Hairspray, only murders in the building. And the list goes on and on.
This is Jane Pauley. Sunday mornings, Tracy Smith talks with the man behind the music. Mark Shaman.
So let's talk about the why. You communicate so beautifully with music and lyrics. Why did you decide to write a memoir? I was tired of the music and lyrics. Partly was because, you know, as I keep working with different generations of people as I get older and older.
They don't know about what I've done before. Like my entire film career, people in the theater don't know, and it was one day on hairspray after the show had already opened. Uh someone came up to me and said Did you work on Sister Act Two? I was like, yeah, I worked on Sister Act 1 and 2 and a lot of other things. Google me.
And once they heard I had worked on Sister Act 2, everyone in the chaos was like, It just had a whole new attitude about me because that movie for that generation meant so much. And so I have a lot of incidents like that where It's not to boast, maybe a little. Or maybe a lot, but it's just wanting people to know what I've done so that they know what I'm capable of or where I'm coming from. And then I was also listening to Julia Louis Dreyfus has a podcast, and she was talking to Jane Fonda. And Jane Fonda was talking about her memoir.
I'm not equating myself with Jane Fonda, but Jane Fonda said, she felt it was time for a life review. And that really stuck in my head. And I think I was driving. This is driving. This is you driving.
And I was going through a show business disappointment at the time. And I think I think I thought subliminally, yeah, let me look back at all these joyous. Iconic, some of them projects I've been able to work on.
Some of them I've been able to bring that to them, really feel like I was really a part of why those projects. blew up and brought a lot of joy to people and You can tell from the title, I'm not a guy who always is finding the joy. Uh I'm my friends call me Eeyore.
So I think I wrote I think that's why I wrote the book. Is to cheer myself up. That makes sense that makes sense. Did it work? Yeah, I have to admit, these last few weeks of talking about the book and sharing all these stories about all these projects.
It has made me feel good. I it's odd. I did two T V things and neither of them mentioned hairspray. And at first, when they were over, I went, oh good God, they didn't talk about hairspray. That's like thy biggest thing.
And then I actually kind of saw the silver lining for once. And it was like, How great. Yeah, I had whole conversations about things and it wasn't about hairspray. I really took a lot of pleasure in that, that finally all these other things were coming to light. That's great.
It is full of rich stories, but we have to talk about the title. Never mind the happy. Where does that come from? Nevermind the happy is from the morning that my mother defined Judaism when my sister called her 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 in my blood.
So, your friends call you an Eeyore. Is that purely genetics or is that a lifetime of experience? It's both. I think it's genetics and. You know, I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
And It so often does. You know, at one point I Quote The fact that I got Oscar nominated on a Tuesday morning. And then on Thursday they announced, without even telling us, it was in the trades, that they weren't going to perform all the songs that were nominated, and mine and Scott's song was not going to be performed. And so I said, boy, leave it to show business. Put you on a pedestal on Tuesday to get a better shot at your f ⁇ .
It's on Thursday.
Okay. That was for Mary Poppins' return. Yes. And you ultimately prevailed there. Yes, they didn't realize who they were up against: the dog with a bone.
I use all my connections and. Two days later, There was a new announcement that all five songs would be performed.
So go back. How did you discover your musical gift? The family legend is that my sister had was taking piano lessons and went out to play and the piano teacher went up to have a cup of coffee with my mom and suddenly heard my sister's piano lesson. Was it? Whatever it was.
They were like, Joyce went out. Who's playing the piano? And they went downstairs and there I was. You know, could it reach the keys? before first grade.
I know earlier than kids usually start piano lessons. But from that day on, I started taking piano lessons because they saw that Like, you know, what would have happened if that piano hadn't been in the house? I love a piano. I love that we have a piano here. It is, it's truly part of my.
body and heart and soul. It really is. Always has been. Do you feel differently sitting at the piano than you do in other parts of your life? I feel at home here.
Yeah, and on stage, I'm a ham. I feel more at home on stage. Than really anywhere. I just enjoy the performers I've got to work with. Can you imagine?
I mentioned ones that like playing for Bette Midler. You have the best seat in the House because not only are you playing for Bette Midler, But my view is the audience. Oh, but that look on their face. And when Hairspray was running on Broadway, Scott and I used to sometimes peek out of the curtain. and look out at the audience during the finale of You Can't Stop the Beat, And no matter the age, whoever it people were.
They all had the same look, that exhilarated look of joy, and they were all sitting forward. It was just so great to see. Yeah, what did that feel like? It felt great to have helped create something that. made everyone feel the same.
This one big feeling, no matter who they were, where they came from, or what their day had brought them. Uh That's a wonderful feeling. That is. That shared moment of joy. It's like a shared laugh.
There's something so special in that. And that you helped create that. And that's one of many.
So let's go back. I mentioned Mary Poppins Returns. We're going back. Mary Poppins was an early inspiration. Very much.
I listened to that Mary Poppins soundtrack. The movie was, I think, came out when I was four. and I listen to nothing but that soundtrack endlessly. and and learned all you could ever want to learn about songwriting from the Sherman brothers, and also about orchestration. Erwin Kostel was the orchestrator, arranger, also of the movie The Sound of Music.
And even as a little four-year-old, with all the joyous music and Mary Poppins, it was this cut. Where the father realizes What's gone wrong? And Dick Van Dyke teaches him a lesson. Those melancholy chords. And the lyrics and the music just I would get emotional listening to a little four-year-old, and I've been ugly crying ever since.
But loved that movie so much.
So what was it like skipping ahead? What was it like to come full circle and do the music for Mary Poppins Returns. What a dream. If we hadn't gotten the job for Mary Poppins Returns, I honestly don't know what I would have done. I would have had to have moved.
To a hut somewhere. I couldn't have Imagine seeing the posters for it. And then, you know, I I went from the Mary Poppin' soundtrack And then Puberty and Bette Midler came out at the same time for me, and I moved on to the Bette Midler albums. And did nothing but listen to those then for years, and then was obsessed with her and then ended up working with her. Yeah, talk about that because you that's it's like you manifested working with Beth Midler.
That's what I call the chapter, manifesting Midler. I had her posters on the wall. I stole money from my father's wallet to go cut school and go see her in concert on Broadway. And when I saw her in concert on Broadway, I fantasized that I would run down the aisle and say, Oh, Miss Midler, I know every note of every song. Let me play for you.
Catch you. The first people I met when I moved to New York at 16. Which blows my mind now that I had the nerve to move to New York when I was 16. They lived across the hall from one of Bette Midler's backup singers. They're called the Harlettes when they sing with Bette.
And they wanted to do their own act. And so there I was. At that point, I was 17, I think, when I started working with the Harlettes. They did a cabaret act that had a big success. And then Bette said, Girls, I'm doing another tour.
Come back on the road with me. and I'll let you open my show.
So I was flown to LA to teach Bette Midler's band the harlettes material. And then I just sat in the back of the rehearsal hall. In Walkman Midler. And then she started rehearsing. I was like having my own personal Bet Mitzler concert.
If that was all that ever happened, it would have been all I ever dreamt of. but then suddenly she called the song out to the band and they didn't know it. And Charlot, one of the Harlettes, went over to Bet and said, Did you see him? And Bet said, back there, 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.
Let me play for you. Like, the actual dream came true. And she heard me play, and she put me in her pocketbook, canceled my flight back to New York, and that was almost 50 years ago. And she, because she's a frugal gal, she didn't put me in a hotel, she put me in her guest room of her house, and not even like the guest house in the backyard. No, I was living next door to her down the hall, like brother and sister, and that is the relationship we have to this day.
Wow. Talk about a dream come true. I mean, I brought that up because all those years later. Then Mary Poppins returns happens, And were nominated for an Oscar. and on stage at the Oscars, and this didn't really occur to me until a few weeks later.
That I had written a song for my favorite literary movie character, Mary Poppins. I got to write it with Scott Whitman, my co-lyricist, who was also my life partner for 25 years, my first soulmate. We got to write a song and Bette Midler agreed to sing it at the Oscars. I mean It seems too good to be true. That's why I wrote the book.
I mean, To remind myself of these dreams that came true for me. I mean, and so when I realized this full circle moment that even Oprah Winfrey has never experienced, it was at my 60th birthday party when I was thanking Bette just for this and that. I put all that together, I just of course, once again. The ugly crying. began.
I just can't believe all these things have happened. Yeah, you do have a forest gumpy quality to you. I mean, not just that you're in every you're everywhere. Yeah, and show yeah, now and then when I meet people in the show business who I haven't worked with, it's odd to like, yeah, you're the one I haven't worked with yet. Wow.
It's amazing. You talked about moving to New York at 16. Were you scared? No. Do you have a 16-year-old child?
A little bit older than 16, but yeah, I can't imagine. My parents, I mean, I took the test, I got a diploma.
So the day I turned 16, I had a high school diploma. And 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 going to do? Chain him to the piano?
So, and they could see I had done community theater. I was out every night. I was dedicated. I loved it. And they just saw there was no stopping me.
Yeah, I moved to New York when I was 16. And this was the 70s, New York in the 70s. It hadn't been cleaned up yet. It hadn't been Disney-fied. When you walked down 42nd Street to get to Times Square, you walked very fast and you didn't look at anybody.
It was a very different Manhattan. But you felt like you belonged there? Yes. And everything happened right away. Yeah, talk about that.
So you mentioned Scott. If you can do it briefly, how did you end up meeting Scott Whitman? I went to New York with a friend when I was 16 that summer, and I was with a friend from New Jersey, and we ran into some other friends from New Jersey. And we said, let's catch up, even though I was 16. What's to catch up on?
But we went to where we ran into each other and ended up being a piano bar called Marie's Crisis. That's like this legendary piano bar, still exists today. And there was a piano, so I started to play, and the bartender, like out of an old 1930s movie, said, Hey, kid. You're good. And he ran next door.
There was an act that needed a funnier piano player.
So, in that one fell swoop, I got a job playing at the piano bar, even though I was only 16, and playing for their act. And they're the ones who lived across the hall, Scott Whitman and his friends, from one of Bette Midler's backup singers.
So, in that one afternoon, It was like Alice in Wonderland. I mean I stepped through the looking glass. That's amazing. And they Scott's Was it Scott's group that said to you you'd played a song and they said, no, play song. Yeah, they said, can you play Together Wherever We Go from Gypsy?
And I played. And they said, no, no, no, can you play cheesy? And I was like, oh, you mean like at a bar mitzvah? Like, wherever we go, wherever we do, we're gonna go through it. And they were like, you're hired.
I hadn't known people with that sense of humor about that cheesy side of show business.
So. And I've been cheesing it up ever since. You worked for Saturday Night Live for a time. What was the best thing to come out of SNL? At Saturday Live I got to co-create the Sweeney Sisters, which were two lounge-singing girls who did long medleys, talk about cheesy show business.
And although you don't see them a lot now on repeats and on YouTube because of the music rights, There's a certain generation that really loved these two girls, and so I did get to work on recurring characters on Saturday Night Live. But then one year was the year that Billy Crystal and Martin Short We're That one year, they only signed up for one year. And I got called a lot that year, mostly by them. At that at Mm. At that time, someone had to have an idea and then they would call me.
And I would just sit with Billy and Martin and Christopher Guest. And we would just laugh at the world. We would laugh. I don't think we hardly ever got anything on the show. but my friendships with Billy and Marty are still to this day.
I'll show you my text just from last night. I mean It's just been the, you know, that was what Saturn Live gave me, those friendships. And then Billy Crystal is the one who introduced me to Rob Reiner. Before we get to Rob, what was it like you wrote those Oscar medleys with Billy? What was that process like?
It's a wonderful night for Oscar. Oscar, Oscar! Who will win? Who will win? We were making fun of the cheesy medleys that had preceded us.
And then some people felt our medleys started becoming cheesy medleys themselves.
Well, screw them. But that was a thrill. And, you know, getting to write for something that you keep hearing, a billion people will be watching. But Billy's very good. Billy knows you just play to the room.
Play to the people whose faces are in front of you. And That was joyous because then my film career had taken me away from musical theater in New York and the dreams that I'd had in New York of getting to write a musical. But getting to write those medleys with Billy and at least writing funny lyrics, it reminded me of when I would read Mad Magazine as a kid and there were new lyrics to existing songs that would say, sung to the tune of.
So I suddenly had this big job in front of the world to be like Mad Magazine. And it kind of felt a little Broadway, too. Yeah, very much. And oh my god, at the orchestra rehearsals. When I was teaching the orchestra, I got to sing before Billy got there.
I got to sing it once always, you know, so I was getting the ham in me out. And I got to work on a couple of movies that were musical theatery-y, like Sister Act. the end of the First Wives Club when they break into song. And then South Park. Let's go through those.
So let's talk Rob first. What was it like working with Rob Reiner? Working with Rob was just the greatest. You know, Billy asked him 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 mensch that he is says, Have I got a guy for you? and introduced me to Rob and I brought my Rogers and Hart songbook, 'cause Rogers and Hart wrote a great song, If they asked me, I could write a book. And the last lyric is a In a better key for me, yeah. Then the world discovers, as my book ends, how to make two lovers of friends. Which seemed very good for when Harry met Sally, and Rob was like, You're hired.
And that was it. And then I and then Rob asked me to he said, buddy, You want to score my next movie? It's a psychological thriller called Misery. And I was like, why would he think I wouldn't know how to do that. If the next movie was about vaudeville, I could imagine why he would think I had the compositional skills.
No one knew that I could do that. I didn't know. But he had this faith. He said to my agent, even my own agent said, Rob, And Rob said, Richard, Talent is talent. And his faith in me, I had to live up to his faith in me.
Wow. Can you even describe getting that phone call? Yeah, it was Billy Crystal who texted me, call me. and I could just sense through 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.
I I've really only had two moments. where I've let out the grief. Because I can't believe it. You have to believe it's real first to be able to start to grieve. My fingers are starting to, right now.
You know, I'm feeling it right now. Um,. You know, we went and sat Shiva. We ran to LA and, uh, sat with our comedy community. just in shock.
I just watched the Mel Brooks documentary just the other night, and when Rob came on, I didn't even go, like, I didn't cry seeing Rob. Oh, I just was like, well, there's Rob. There's Rob talking. And then I had to remember, oh, Oh my god. It's just, it's impossible to conceive of.
And Michelle, the two of them. the couple of all time. I'm married. Very much. They're responsible.
They were so much a part of the fight for same-sex marriage right up to the Supreme Court. They were part of that.
So I owe them that besides my film career and music. my happiness in my marriage. I could play you something if might I play you from the American president, you know. Rob Reiner also got me an Oscar nomination. One of seven.
That night I was nominated against John Williams. We both lost.
So you see, me and John Williams, we're the same. But uh Rob made the most beautiful movie, The American President. which means a lot to me, more so these days. Uh And I know you can edit this down, so I'm just going to play it all in. Please.
Hmm. Four. We can just take a minute. I just can't believe it. I'm so sorry.
That was so beautiful. Anyway, I think I played that just to. Get that out. Because it Anyway, just makes me think of him. And you know, working with him was It was about the music.
But it was about the friendship. The hang. H-A-N-G, the Hang. Just being together. and respect that the others you're in the room with.
Have it. And you can forget about the worrying, does everyone have what it takes? And then it's the hang. And that's what I think of Rob. He'd come over for two hours and only half an hour of it was about the music, and the rest of it was us telling stories and finishing each other's jokes.
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Okay, so I feel like these are the hits, but we're just gonna run through some other ones. City Slickers.
Well, there's two I think of from that. I used to be able to play this much better. I used to. We can meld it. You get older and you don't play as much.
And oh, here's a memory, and I'm going to see Ron Underwood tonight, who directed City Slickers. I'll always remember the first time the main theme got played in a kind of majestic way, and they were all on horses, and it went a. And Ron Underwood was. sitting in front of the recording booth and just as it was hitting He just turned around and... Smiled the most beatific smile at me.
And I'll always remember that image. It's one of my favorite memories of scoring movies, Ron. Just was so happy and I can't wait to see him tonight. That's wonderful. Um Moving forward, Sister Act.
You were asked to do the music for that, but they gave you a big rule. They said you couldn't use any music after a certain date. Yeah, it was bizarre. There was some sort of. Rights thing about certain years.
I think it's gone away. But when I got Sister Act, it had to be girl group songs turned into hymns. and hymns turned into girl groups. That was my job. It said in the script that this would happen.
But they said you can't use anything from 1960 three on or maybe even sixty two on I was like guys That's the era of girl groups.
So luckily, when I went through the biggest hits of 61 and 62, I Will Follow Him was in there. I Will Follow Him, which was little Peggy March. She wasn't a girl group, but. Seems like a girl group. And then nothing you can say can take me away from my guy.
And at the demo session where I was demoing things to let Disney hear what things might sound like, I was like. How about we said my God instead of my guy? And I was wondering: is it just a corny pun? Is everyone going to just groan? But it worked, and then when the nuns in the movie were so sincerely saying it, It worked.
But the one, I said to them at Disney: I'm a little Jewish boy. You're going to have to send me hymnals. I don't know hymns.
So they sent me hymnals and I was going through them and I came across this one that said, Hail Holy Queen, well, how's it going? Hail Holy Queen enthroned above, Oh Maria and O Maria. It just seemed to me like three Puerto Rican girls on the stoop singing, Oh Maria.
So then that became like, oh. Oh wow. And it worked. And Sister Act, you know, what a joyful, joyful experience. That's awesome.
And I don't mean to skip too far ahead, but I'm going to. Then South Park, the first South Park movie. Can you explain what it was like to work on that? I'm picturing just insanity. I have the same sense of humor as the guys who do South Park, Matt and Trey.
And also the same sense of humor as John Waters, who created many movies, including Hairspray.
So when I got the call to work on South Park, I was. on top of the world. and Trey Parker is a true genius. and he had already basically written it. But Scott Rudin had the idea that I could come in there as kind of like the suddenly even at thirty-five at that point, I guess I was, I was the old learned professor that I could help Trey realize his dream of creating a movie musical.
And Trey was incredibly collaborative. And if he hadn't finished the song, he said, you know, Play around with that, whatever.
Sometimes he wouldn't even come and hear what I was doing for the orchestra. He was so trusting. It was. A wonderful experience. And I got to write additional music, lyrics, arrange, orchestrate.
I'm even the voice of one of the boys in one of the songs. I got to create a fart tap dance break. Can we say fart on CBS? Fart you're allowed to say. Yes, so I got to do everything.
This was your idea, the fart tap dance break. Because there's a certain song that I know we can't say on CBS, it's about your uncle. Trey said, no, that one's all written. You don't need to add anything to that, Mark. But I did have this idea that these characters who are, well, they love flatulence.
That's all they do is laugh at flatulence. And so I had this idea to get all the sound effects that they had. And find the little boop boop, boop, find all the rhythms and create a tap dance break like Singing in the Rain, like Donald O'Connor and Gene Kelly. They should not be rolling in their graves when I'm associating them with the fart tap dance break. But it was a big success in that song, and that movie was just.
You know, the highlight for me to that point in my movie scoring career. But then, if that wasn't enough, That put my name back in the New York theatrical community. Yeah, South Park led to Broadway.
So a woman named Margot Lyon got the rights to hairspray, and everyone she asked that summer that that movie South Park was out, she said, Who should I get to write the score for hairspray? And everyone said, Mark Shaman, get Mark Shaman.
So South Park was not only unto itself the greatest thing, but it led to the ultimate dream come true. Because now I could finally involve Scott again. Scott had been sitting, you know, waiting my whole film score career, you know. And so finally, and it was John Waters who Scott and I love so much. We were first online for every John Waters movie.
And then came hairspray, the dream you have in the dream come true. And you two came up with four songs right off the bat that you sent to them? Yes, the first day we went to work, Scott said, Tracy Turnblat should be like Curly in Oklahoma. He looks out at the beautiful Oklahoma plains and sings, oh, what a beautiful morning. He said, well, Tracy should open her window and look out at John Waters Baltimore with the flashers and the bums and the rats on the street.
And she is so optimistic, she still finds it beautiful. And I went to the piano and, good morning, Baltimore. It just came right out of me. And then I write enough music with dummy lyrics, and then Scott and I sit and we really carve out the lyrics together. And we wrote, good morning, Baltimore.
We wrote Welcome to the 60s, which is a line from the movie where she says, Mama, welcome to the 60s. And Scott and I were like, that's a title. We wrote that, then we wrote a song called Big, Blonde, and Beautiful. and a song called I Know Where I've Been, which is a A more solemn song that is really about what the show is really about, which is the civil rights movement. It couldn't all be just.
Jokes. You know, it had to be about what it's about, and so that song. and amazingly for a new musical. the first few songs you write usually go by the wayside. Those are still The tent poles.
that hold up hairspray. It was it was a charmed thing from the get-go. What's the biggest Thrill that you got out of hairspray, that whole experience? To write hairspray, after wanting to write a musical on Broadway and not getting our break. And doing shows in the East Village in the 80s that had a crazy sensibility to them.
And then all of a sudden there. you know, 15 years later and having lived through the AIDS crisis. And such Sadness. to be able to be part of a show. That was lifting us out of that era.
This big, beautiful, colorful show, and I say colorful in all ways, the fact that if you looked at everyone on stage, It was, you know, it was diverse and it and And it was just a joy. Every single time he looked at the marquee and on opening night, They put a mic in my hand, so you can already tell it's dangerous. But I looked out and I said, I just wish that that balcony went straight to heaven.
so that all the friends we had lost to aides Who would all love the show so much? I just hope that they were there watching as well. That's a memory I'll never forget and winning the Tony Award. I want to talk about the Tony for a second, but while you touched on the AIDS crisis, you write really beautifully about grief and what that was like as a young man to be checking the obituary page every morning. Yeah, those who were lucky enough to not live through the AIDS crisis.
God bless them that they'll never know what that was like. to be in your late twenties and thirties and First thing you do every morning, like some old man at the old folks' home, you turn to the obituaries first. And uh There's someone else. Oh, I didn't even know that they were sick because people were dying so fast. And you kept a a list?
I kept a list. I I started handwriting a list there in my studio. one after another until that list got to around a hundred and thirty five people. Oh my goodness. I mean, in my life now, I'd have to tell everyone I love and know now.
Go away because if those 135 people were still in my life, I mean. there wouldn't be enough room. It's an entire generation of people, of songs and shows and books and dresses and ballets that never got written, never got created. Wow. Immense.
During that time I said to once, uh to myself, I think, I could write a song. It would be probably a country western song because the title that came to me was. If tears were only calories, Just think how thin I'd be. And it's that's not a fat shaming joke. That just meant If there was just some Plus some silver lining to the endless crying, the endless memorials and funerals.
The endless loss.
So hairspray really allowed us to Re-embrace. you know, life and joy and That's beautiful. and the Tonys. That moment when you guys win at the Tony's turns into this romantic moment. I know.
Well, I love Scott. We've been partners, life partners, lovers as we used to say, for over two decades. And suddenly our dreams came true. It was just crazy. And I also say it was like if we were on Let's Make a Deal and it went a refrigerator, we would have hugged and kissed.
But I suddenly found myself saying, because it was sort of in the news about could it ever happen? And I said, Scott, I love you. I'm not allowed to marry you, but I just want to say in front of the world, I love you. And.
so on and so forth, and he grabbed me and hugged and we kissed. and the audience erupted. Oh n can hear that still right now in my ear. Of course, with every plot comes a zetz, as we say in Yiddish. When I went back to my seat, floating on air, as you can imagine.
My mom and my dad were there and my father, who never showed great anger ever. He was so upset with me. I had not thanked my parents. Scott and I had to share the moment. And you know what it is.
They play people off just so they can do funny comedy bits in the rest of the show. They play off the people who were living out their dream. And I didn't get to thank my parents.
So I went from on top of the world to Let's talk about guilt. I mean, I eventually Found my way to balance it, but that'll live with me forever, that I didn't thank my parents that night. Thank you, Mom and Dad. Yeah.
So you've won what? It's two Tony's, two. No, I wish. No, one Tony. I've won one Tony, two Emmys.
Two Emmys 32 years apart, I think, with 17 losses in between, which is why I turned to Scott at the last Emmy Awards we were up for for Only Murders in the Building. And just as the envelope came out, I turned to Scott and I said, I don't care if we win. I just don't want to lose. You know, I cut gym class to go to the auditorium to play the piano because I didn't want to be in competitive sports. I'm not competitive that way.
So you're suddenly put in this competitive situation. Anyway, but I also won two Grammys. And uh Yeah, so you can't. That's why I call it, you know. Shoba's tales from a sore winner because I was complaining, as I'm wont to do, to someone one day, and a friend said, Mark Shaman, you are a sore winner.
And that stuck in my head: like, well, touche. Yeah.
So. Tony, Grammy's Emmy, seven Oscar nominations. I'm just an egged. I'm not an egot. I'm just an egg.
Yeah.
It can still happen. What are you working on now? This book. Selling this book. Do you have plans for what's next?
Scott and I are. have our dipping our toe into a project for a great performer named Bridget Everett. And Patty Lupone, a show with the two of them. That takes place after Armageddon. That's all I'm allowed to say.
And we're just playing with that. And it's for off Broadway. It's not a Broadway show. It's for something to be put on somewhere else because we're a little gun shy about Broadway. Broadway is just so hard these days and so expensive that we wanted to do something that doesn't call for a million people on stage and This just calls for two powerhouse performers singing their guts out.
Fabulous. Yeah, I mean talk about that. You've had these musicals. We've talked to you about these musicals that were critical successes. Smash was a critics pick.
Some Like It Hot was a critical success. And yet they didn't have the legs that a hairspray did.
Well, like I said to you earlier about putting on the pedestal, just to get a better shot at your extremities. It just seems like show business keeps doing that and I can't complain. I really can't. I mean, I just won that Emmy for Only Murders in the Building. That was only like a year and a half ago or so.
Who am I to complain? And I'm on the New York Times bestseller list. Oh, yes, we need to mention that best-selling author. Once again, I'll try not to complain for a little while. Give me a week.
Yeah.
I would also, I'd like to say I'd be perfectly happy to sit on the couch with my husband and watch Jeopardy. And not not have to go and work on something and you know, editing vocals all night and singing of new chords and getting notes from people. And now everyone is a critic. That used to just be sort of an expression, everyone's a critic.
Well, now everyone really thinks they are a critic and they're writing online and You, you know, it's hard to avoid. You know, I like going online. I like to be human in 2026 and read about what people are up to. And then suddenly, bam! You weren't even prepared, and someone says something about you or the thing you work on, or they even tag you.
And then say something like, Well, did you have to tag me?
So it's hard. My skin has gotten thinner over the years. You'd think. you get used to it and your skin will get it thicker, but mine has gotten thinner. I'm so glad you said that because that's the same.
Like, I'll see the one negative and ignore all the other things. Yeah, we all will. Just the other night, I did one of these book talks, and sure enough, that one guy in the front row. On his phone, and that's all you can see. Yeah, you know, a room full of people enjoying themselves so much, and that one guy.
He said, I'm Googling you. That was ironic. Anyway. Not now.
So you touched on this, but you know, the book's called Nevermind the Happy. What what does make you happy now? My husband My dog until my dog suddenly died suddenly two weeks after her eighth birthday. Um My friends Writing with Scott. Tonight, Bette Midler is going to interview me at the Academy Museum.
If I can't find happiness in that, then, you know Someone should really put me away, but... There's a lot to be happy about, and in this world we're living in right now. You have to really find those things that make you happy as we are watching, you know, everything fall apart. You have to hold fast to those things that we love and the people we love. It's people.
I sound so corny. I realized after writing this book and talking about it, I've written an inspirational book. It wasn't my intent, I was just tooting my own horn. But I realized with all these stories of sometimes getting up from a disappointment and the next thing really was a success, the way people kept saying, Mark, don't give up. And it's true.
And I've 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 have ever dreamt of can happen. I'm Jane Pauley.
Thank you for listening. And for more of our extended interviews, follow and listen to Sunday Morning on the free Odyssey app. or wherever you get your podcasts. At Nature's Bounty, the belief is simple. You already have a brilliant body.
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