Britain’s – and perhaps the world’s – best known musical theatre composer will turn 70 today.
Andrew Lloyd Webber is the musical powerhouse behind a string of hit musicals in the West End and Broadway, several of which have transferred successfully to the silver screen.
In total he has composed 13 musicals, several of which have run for more than a decade in the West End and on Broadway and included songs which have stormed the pop charts. Although musical theatre is his first love, he has also composed other works including two film scores, a song cycle, a set of variations and a Latin Requiem Mass.
Music was in his blood, born the elder son of composer and organist William Lloyd Webber and noted violinist and pianist Jean Hermione Johnstone. His younger brother, Julian, is also a renowned cellist. Growing up in Kensington, Andrew Lloyd Webber was writing complex musical compositions before the age of 10 and staged ‘productions’ in a toy theatre with his brother. They were encouraged by their Aunt Viola, an actress who introduced him to the world of theatre, taking him to see many shows, often through the stage door.
After winning a scholarship to Westminster School, he went on to Oxford University to read history, but abandoned the course to pursue his love of musical theatre, studying at the Royal College of Music. It was in 1965 that he first met aspiring lyricist Tim Rice, beginning a lifelong and extremely productive collaboration.
Their first work together, a musical about the life of children’s home founder Thomas John Barnardo, failed to find a backer, but led to a commission to write a piece for a school choir. It resulted in songs which by 1972 the duo had expanded into a full-blown stage musical, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”. In the meantime they had written the rock opera “Jesus Christ Superstar”, which debuted in 1971 and became a huge hit, spawning a 1973 film version.
The gilt-edged partnership continued into the 1970s, with their hit show “Evita” opening in the West End in 1978 and transferring to Broadway the following year. It’s best-known song, “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”, became one of the decade’s biggest hits. Around the same time Lloyd Webber composed a classical piece, “Variations”, with his brother Julian. The album hit number two in the mainstream pop chart, almost unheard of for a classical work, and its main theme was used as the theme music to ITV’s flagship arts programme “The South Bank Show” throughout its 32-year run.
The 1980s was a very prolific time, producing “Cats”, “Starlight Express”, “Aspects of Love” and arguably Lloyd Webber’s biggest hit, “Phantom of the Opera”. He wrote the central part of Christine for his second wife, singer Sarah Brightman, and the show also made a stage musical star of Michael Crawford, until then best known as Frank Spencer in TV sitcom “Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em”. Also in the ’80s, Lloyd Webber composed a full Requiem Mass dedicated to his father, who died in 1982. It setting of “Pie Jesu” had been a hit for several artists, including a young Charlotte Church.
By the 1990s Lloyd Webber was involved in many more diverse projects, including film scores and a song for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. Other successes included stage musical versions of two hit films, “Sunset Boulevard” and “Whistle Down the Wind”.
Since 2000 the multi-award-winning composer has increasingly turned his expertise to producing other writers’ stage musicals. He has also appeared as a judge and mentor on several TV shows to discover new musical stars for West End revivals of classic musicals including “Joseph…”, “Oliver!”, “Grease”, “The Sound of Music” and a new stage version of “The Wizard of Oz”, for which he and Tim Rice penned several new songs.
A 2010 sequel to “Phantom”, called “Love Never Dies”, was a rare flop, despite a number of reworkings. Lloyd Webber had undergone treatment for prostate cancer in the run-up to the show’s opening, although he never linked the two and remains proud of the show. Having overcome the cancer, he remained extremely busy in musical theatre, often working on new productions from his own extensive body of work. His latest hit is a stage musical version of the 2003 film “School of Rock”, while this year also saw him publish his autobiography, “Unmasked”.
In addition to a string of awards for his work, Lloyd Webber was knighted in 1992 and made a life peer in 1997, making him officially Lord Lloyd Webber. As he celebrates his 70th birthday today we can only hope his remarkable creative output continues for many years to come.