{"id":91542,"date":"2026-02-10T13:38:33","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T18:38:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/?p=91542"},"modified":"2026-02-10T23:48:52","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T04:48:52","slug":"from-hairspray-to-south-park-composer-marc-shaiman-tells-a-showbiz-story-shaped-by-jewish-humor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/from-hairspray-to-south-park-composer-marc-shaiman-tells-a-showbiz-story-shaped-by-jewish-humor\/","title":{"rendered":"From \u2018Hairspray\u2019 to \u2018South Park,\u2019 composer Marc Shaiman tells a showbiz story shaped by Jewish humor"},"content":{"rendered":"

By STEPHEN SILVER<\/p>\n

(JTA) \u2014 Marc Shaiman likes to joke that for half a century he\u2019s been \u201cthe funny Jewish guy at the piano,\u201d a role as old as vaudeville and as enduring as a well-timed joke. <\/p>\n

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Marc Shaiman is the author of a new memoir,, \u201cNever Mind the Happy: Showbiz Stories from a Sore Winner.” (Robert Trachtenberg)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

But behind the punchline is a career that traces a distinctly Jewish path through American show business: a bar mitzvah where he improvised the music to his haftarah; collaborations with Bette Midler, Rob Reiner and a who\u2019s-who of Jewish Hollywood; composing the music for Broadway\u2019s \u201cHairspray,\u201d and scoring the 1999 film \u201cSouth Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut\u201d and co-writing its Oscar-nominated song, \u201cBlame Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, in his new memoir \u201cNever Mind the Happy: Showbiz Stories from a Sore Winner,\u201d Shaiman reflects on a life shaped by chutzpah, fate, disappointment and the particular blend of humor, loss and resilience he credits to being Jewish \u2014 a sensibility that, he says, made show business feel less like a career choice than a birthright.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not hard to spend your whole life with Jews when you\u2019re in show business,\u201d he said in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. \u201cI know that sounds like maybe a trope or a bad thing to say, but there\u2019s no question that the Jews have been a big part of show business from the beginning of time. I\u2019m sure the first caveman who put on a show was circumcised.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shaiman joined that business when he left his hometown of Scotch Plains, New Jersey, at age 16 after getting his GED and headed for New York City. He performed with cabaret acts and comedy shows.<\/p>\n

For the last 50 years, the 66-year-old Shaiman has indeed been that funny Jewish guy at the piano, as everything from an arranger and writer in the early years of \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d to a creator of musical moments for Oscar broadcasts (along with seven Academy Award nominations for his work on films like \u201cMary Poppins Returns\u201d and \u201cSleepless in Seattle\u201d). Shaiman worked on music for nearly every film Reiner made, starting with \u201cWhen Harry Met Sally\u201d in 1989; he was nominated for an Oscar for scoring Reiner\u2019s film \u201cThe American President.\u201d<\/p>\n

He even appeared as an animated version of himself, piano and all, in the \u201cI\u2019m Super\u201d number in the \u201cSouth Park\u201d movie.  <\/p>\n

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Marc Shaiman and his partner Scott Whitman, shown here at a Drama League benefit in 2011, are known as the songwriting duo behind Broadway’s “Hairspray,” “Smash” and “Some Like It Hot.” (Rob Rich)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Many of those projects were written in collaboration with Scott Wittman, his romantic partner for many years, and still his songwriting partner. <\/p>\n

The book is full of Jewish mother jokes and Yiddish asides, and the title comes from an expression used by his mother: One New Year\u2019s Day, Shaiman\u2019s sister told her mother, \u201cMom, I want to be the first to wish you a happy and healthy new year,\u201d to which their mother replied, \u201cNever mind the happy.\u201d Shaiman calls it \u201cthe day that my mother defined Judaism.\u201d <\/p>\n

He describes the \u201cSouth Park\u201d gig leading into his biggest Broadway hit, \u201cHairspray\u201d as beshert, or fated, because the right producer noticed it at the right time. He also credits his own chutzpah for much of his success. <\/p>\n

One of the first Broadway shows he ever saw was \u201cFiddler on the Roof,\u201d not long after its debut in 1964, and when a young Bette Midler was making her Broadway debut as Tevye\u2019s daughter Tzeitel.<\/p>\n

\u201cBette Midler\u2019s first two albums and [my] puberty both happened at the same time,\u201d he said at a Philadelphia book event on Jan. 29. \u201cAnd I became obsessed with Bette Midler.\u201d <\/p>\n

Shaiman ended up collaborating with Midler, first as her vocal arranger and then on movies like \u201cBeaches\u201d and \u201cFor the Boys.\u201d He was also at the piano when Midler serenaded Johnny Carson as his final guest on \u201cThe Tonight Show\u201d in 1992. <\/p>\n

The \u201cfunny Jewish guy at the piano\u201d trope, he says, dates back mostly to Oscar Levant, the Jewish actor and concert pianist who appeared in films from the 1930s through the \u201950s. (Sean Hayes portrayed Levant in the 2023 Broadway play \u201cGoodnight, Oscar.\u201d) <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was like me, times a million,\u201d Shaiman said of the famously mordant and dyspeptic Levant. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just Jewish, show business and comedy,\u201d he said. \u201cThose three terms seem redundant to me [in] that you know you can\u2019t have one without the others. You know, I take great pride in my Jewishness and the humor that comes from being Jewish.\u201d <\/p>\n

Shaiman didn\u2019t come from an especially religious family, but he did have a bar mitzvah. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy memory is that I might have used my musical ability to kind of ad lib some of the music to my haftorah, which I could get away with because I could do my own intervals that seemed right,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

In adulthood, he\u2019s become more skeptical of organized religion in general. <\/p>\n

\u201cHaving said that, I love being Jewish. I love Jewish people. I love how what\u2019s in our blood has made us the way that we are,\u201d Shaiman said. <\/p>\n

Friends of his had suggested that he write a book, but the true impetus, he said, was when he heard actress Jane Fonda on a podcast talking about her own memoirs. \u201cShe felt it was time for a life review,\u201d Shaiman told JTA.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that\u2019s stuck in my head. I think I was also in the midst of a disappointment in show business. <\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe even subliminally, I thought if I go back and relive all these moments and write out all these joyous, incredible opportunities I\u2019ve had and stuff I\u2019ve been able to create, it would do me some good,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n

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Shaiman writes about the bitter and the sweet of a long, successful career with setbacks that still sting. (Regalo Press)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Indeed, the book includes both highs, like winning Tony Awards, and lows, including the countless friends he lost to AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s. Some moments combine both: Accepting the Tony he and Wittman won for \u201cHairspay\u201d \u2014 whose 1960s Baltimore setting he tried to infuse with the spirit of his early days in New York \u2014 Shaiman said he wished the theater balcony \u201creached all the way up to heaven,\u201d so their lost friends could celebrate with them. <\/p>\n

Another lost friend is Reiner. The book, which is full of Rob Reiner stories, was completed before the murder of the director and his wife, Michele, in December, and Shaiman is still coming to terms with the loss of his longtime collaborator and friend. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was like my older brother, but he was also a mentor and such a mensch,\u201d said Shaiman, remembering \u201cnot just what he did for me for my music and lyric career, but what he did for me as a gay man. [The Reiners] were vitally a part of the fight that got all the way to the Supreme Court that ended up creating legal same-sex marriage throughout the country. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe was just a part of my life. And I really still haven\u2019t come to terms with what\u2019s happened. It\u2019s too impossible to believe.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cNever Mind the Happy,\u201d as the title suggests, accepts the bitter and the sweet of a long, successful career with setbacks that still sting. But while he\u2019d love to win that Oscar (despite his seven nominations, Shaiman is one O shy of an EGOT), he counts his blessings.    <\/p>\n

\u201cI just wanted to tell these stories, honestly,\u201d Shaiman said. \u201cMy book is a textbook example of how if you just keep putting yourself out there, that every single one of your dreams can come true.\u201d <\/p>\n

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