Marc Shaiman, a well-known composer, has written a memoir titled Never Mind the Happy. In the book, he reflects on his decades-long relationship with late filmmaker Rob Reiner.
Together, the creative duo was a blazing force; not only did they collaborate on more than 10 films, but the director’s influence on the acclaimed lyricist is also well attested.
Nevertheless, the book was written before the shocking deaths of the Hollywood couple. In its pages, he credits Rob for indirectly helping him quit smoking.
But how? By giving him a task to make a score for his movie Misery, which came out in 1990. It was a challenging role for Marc, who just started his career.
However, at the time, he recalls he was facing a chronic smoking problem. “Up to this point in my career, I was an inveterate pothead. I smoked all the time and for everything. But most of all, I smoked before arranging or writing music and lyrics. I truly couldn’t conceive being creative without getting a little high first.”
He further writes in the excerpt that PEOPLE gets its first look at, “But suddenly I was scoring this movie, which involved getting to work right after breakfast and working throughout the day and into the night.”
The composer explains the complexity of creating a score for a movie, writing, “Film scoring requires finding the right tone, rhythm, notes and harmonies to play the emotions and plot of the movie, while figuring out the complex mathematics all of it involves.”
While in the deep process of making it, Marc remembers, “By Wednesday of the first week, I realized there was no way I could score a movie after smoking a joint before 10 in the morning, which would make me want to quit for the day by noon.”
Skipping a smoke in his routine made composing easy, the author writes. “So, I decided to try to write music, and do all that math and press all those buttons, without smoking first. And I got through the first day!”
Then, Marc writes he pushes himself not smoke another day, and slowly but gradually, his urge to smoke wanes. “Then I figured I’d try another day, which led to the next day, and then suddenly it was the weekend. And I thought, Well, let me keep on this path.”
In the end, he thanked Rob for this, penning, “Therefore, it’s thanks to Rob Reiner that I quit pot cold turkey and freed myself from the misconception that I had to get high before creating.”
Never Mind the Happy will arrive on the bookshelf on Jan 27.
