HARVEY SCHMIDT
HARVEY SCHMIDT, composer of THE FANTASTICKS, the longest-running musical in the world and a prize-winning graphic artist, died in February, 2018 in Tomball, Texas. He was born September 12, 1929, in Dallas, Texas, the second child of Emmanuel Carl Schmidt, a Methodist minister, and Edna Wieting, a music teacher. He taught himself to draw, copying illustrations from magazines, and learned to play the piano by ear (his mother found him too restless to teach.) His strongest musical influences were the Methodist hymnal (he often sang trios in church with his older sister, Evelyn, and his younger brother, Homer), classical music radio broadcasts (especially Toscanini and the NBC Studio Symphony Orchestra, and the Metropolitan Opera), and, most importantly, the Hollywood movie musicals of the 30’s and 40’s.