What Is Alan Menken’s Net Worth and Salary?
Alan Menken is an American composer, musician, and EGOT winner who has a net worth of $100 million. Alan Menken earned his net worth by composing notable musicals for Walt Disney, including “The Little Mermaid” (1989), “Beauty and the Beast” (1991), and “Aladdin” (1992), and he is only the 16th person to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony.
Alan has had success on Broadway as the composer for “Beauty and the Beast” (1994), “King David” (1997), “Little Shop of Horrors” (2003), “The Little Mermaid” (2008), “Sister Act” (2011), “Newsies” (2012), “Leap of Faith” (2012), “Aladdin” (2014), and “A Bronx Tale” (2016), and “Newsies” earned him a Tony for Best Original Score. Menken’s biggest financial success has come from working with Disney. Over the last several decades, he composed music for movies such as “Pocahontas” (1995), “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1996), “Hercules” (1997), “Tangled” (2010), “Captain America: The First Avenger” (2011), and “Ralph Breaks the Internet” (2018). During his career Menken has won 11 Grammys, eight Academy Awards, and seven Golden Globes, among many other awards.
Earnings
His fee for one movie is typically $2–4 million, and every year his ASCAP royalties come in at around $5–10 million.
Early Life
Alan Menken was born Alan Irwin Menken on July 22, 1949, in Manhattan, New York City. His mother, Judith, was a dancer, actress, and playwright, and his father, Norman, was a “boogie-woogie piano-playing dentist.” According to his official website, Alan “grew up in a home, filled with music and theater (and comedy and drama)” with sisters Leah and Faye. Menken comes from a Jewish family, and he began taking violin and piano lessons as a child. Around this time, he started composing, and when he was 9 years old, he competed in the New York Federation of Music Clubs Junior Composers Contest; the judges rated his composition “Bouree” Superior and Excellent. Alan studied at New Rochelle High School, and after graduating in 1967, he earned a musicology degree from New York University’s Steinhardt School in 1971. Menken then joined the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop.
Career
While showcasing numerous BMI workshop musicals in the ’70s, Alan also worked “as a ballet and modern dance accompanist, a musical director for club acts, a jingle writer, arranger, a songwriter for ‘Sesame Street’ and a vocal coach.” In the late ’70s, playwright Howard Ashman recruited Menken to write the music for the musical “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater,” an adaptation of the 1975 Kurt Vonnegut novel “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, or Pearls Before Swine.” The musical received great reviews after its 1979 opening, and Menken and Ashman soon collaborated on the 1982 musical “Little Shop of Horrors,” which set a box office record for the highest-grossing Off-Broadway play in history. “Little Shop of Horrors” was adapted into a 1986 film starring Rick Moranis, Steve Martin, and Ellen Greene, which earned Alan and Howard their first Academy Award nomination. In 1983, Menken was honored with the BMI Career Achievement Award. The success of “Little Shop of Horrors” led Walt Disney Studios to hire Menken and Ashman to write music for the 1989 film “The Little Mermaid.” Alan won two Academy Awards for his work on the film, a feat he also accomplished with 1991’s “Beauty and the Beast,” 1992’s “Aladdin,” and 1995’s “Pocahontas.” Sadly, Menken and Ashman’s partnership ended in 1991 when Howard died from complications of AIDS at the age of 40.
In the ’90s, Alan also contributed music to the live-action films “Rocky V” (1990), “Newsies” (1992), and “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York” (1992) and the animated movies “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1996) and “Hercules” (1997). He then composed music for 2004’s “Home on the Range” and “Noel,” 2006’s “The Shaggy Dog,” and 2007’s “Enchanted.” In 2008, “The Little Mermaid” opened on Broadway, and Menken received a Tony nomination for Best Original Score. He later earned Best Original Score nominations for Broadway adaptations of “Sister Act” (2011), “Newsies” (2012), and “Aladdin” (2014), winning for “Newsies.” Alan has also worked on Broadway productions of “Leap of Faith” (2012) and “A Bronx Tale: The Musical” (2016). He composed music for the 2010 film “Tangled” and the Disney Channel series “Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure” (2017–2020), and his other television work includes “The Neighbors” (2013), “Galavant” (2015–2016), “Central Park” (2020), and “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” (2021). Menken and David Zippel composed the song “Star Spangled Man” for 2011’s “Captain America: The First Avenger,” then Alan worked on the films “Mirror Mirror” (2012), “Sausage Party” (2016), “Ralph Breaks the Internet” (2018), and “Holmes & Watson” (2018) as well as live-action versions of “Beauty and the Beast” (2017) and “Aladdin” (2019). In March 2017, it was announced that Alan would be the composer for a live-action adaptation of “The Little Mermaid,” to be directed by Rob Marshall and produced by Lin-Manuel Miranda.
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Personal Life
Alan married ballet dancer Janis Roswick on November 26, 1972, and they welcomed daughters Anna and Nora on August 1, 1973, and August 10, 1988, respectively. Anna is a singer-songwriter, and Nora was a member of the ensemble in Paper Mill Playhouse and La Jolla Playhouse productions of the musical “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” Nora performed on the musical’s cast recording, which reached #1 on the “Billboard” Cast Albums chart.
Awards and Nominations
Menken has earned five Tony nominations for Best Original Score, winning for “Newsies” in 2012. His other nominations were for “Beauty and the Beast” (1994), “The Little Mermaid” (2008), “Sister Act” (2011), and “Aladdin” (2014). Alan has been nominated for 19 Academy Awards, taking home the prize for Best Music, Original Song (“Under the Sea”) and Best Music, Original Score for “The Little Mermaid” in 1990, Best Music, Original Song (“Beauty and the Beast”) and Best Music, Original Score for “Beauty and the Beast” in 1992, Best Music, Original Song (“A Whole New World”) and Best Music, Original Score for “Aladdin” in 1993, and Best Music, Original Song (“Colors of the Wind”) and Best Music, Original Musical or Comedy Score for “Pocahontas” in 1996. He won a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Original Song in a Children’s, Young Adult or Animated Program (“Waiting in the Wings”) for “Tangled: The Series” in 2020, and he received Primetime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Original Music and Lyrics for “More or Less the Kind of Thing You May or May Not Possibly See on Broadway” from “The Neighbors” (2013) and “A New Season” from “Galavant” (2016).
Menken has won seven Golden Globes: Best Original Score – Motion Picture for “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and “Aladdin” and Best Original Song – Motion Picture for “Under the Sea,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “A Whole New World,” and “Colors of the Wind.” He has earned more than 25 Grammy nominations, winning Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or for Television for “Under the Sea,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “A Whole New World,” “Colors of the Wind,” and “I See the Light” (“Tangled”), Song of the Year for “A Whole New World (Aladdin’s Theme),” Best Song Written for Visual Media for “I See The Light,” Best Recording for Children for “The Little Mermaid (An Original Walt Disney Records Soundtrack),” Best Album for Children for “Beauty And The Beast – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack,” and Best Instrumental Composition Written for a Motion Picture or for Television for “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin.” Alan has also won awards from the Laurence Olivier Awards, Drama Desk Awards, Evening Standard Theatre Awards, Annie Awards, French Mickey d’Or, Gold Derby Awards, Hollywood Music in Media Awards, International Film Music Critics Association Awards, 20/20 Awards, Saturn Awards, and BMI Film & TV Awards, and in 2012, he received a Drama League Award for Distinguished Achievement in Musical Theatre. Menken was inducted into the Online Film & Television Association Film Hall of Fame in 2003, and he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2010.