British composer, playwright and impresario noted for some of the greatest hit shows of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. With Tim Rice as his collaborator, Lloyd-Webber’s first three hits were “Joseph and the Amazing Tehnicolour Dreamcoat,” 1968, “Jesus Christ superstar,” 1970 and “Evita,” 1978. His greatest success was “Cats,” 1981. He was knighted in 1992 to become a Lord. Webber is known for his ability to blend disparate genres into musical spectacles with hugely popular appeal. His musicals are credited with revitalizing British and American theatre during the late 20th century, and he is considered the most successful musical composer of his generation. Born in London, Andrew is the son of the director of the London College of Music. His younger brother Julian was born three years later. His musical training began when he was a child and he composed his first musical, “The Toy Theatre” at the age of seven. By age 17, he had written eight more. From the time his Aunt Vi introduced him to theatre, he was intent on writing music. In 1956, while at Westminster, he began composing the music for school plays. He was awarded a scholarship, granting him reduced tuition costs, and in 1964, he won another scholarship, and transferred to the University of Oxford. He read history at Oxford but dropped out after one term, finding musical theater much more appealing. In 1967, he co-wrote, with Timothy Rice, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” for a school performance. “Joseph” was finally produced on Broadway in 1981. Although Lloyd-Webber and Rice collaborated on several musicals, their last major effort together was “Evita.” The maestro gradually gained quite a reputation for his publicized break-ups with various performers. “Cats,” based on T.S. Eliot’s verses, was hugely successful, becoming both the longest-running musical in British theatrical history and the longest-running show on Broadway where it played for more than 7,000 performances. In 1984, Webber produced the most expensive musical ever created up to that point, “Starlight Express,” and he followed it with the long-time favorite “Phantom of the Opera,” in 1986. His production of “Sunset Boulevard” in the early 1990s was one of his rare failures. In October 1982, Lloyd-Webber was the first impresario to have three musicals running concurrently in New York and three in London. However, he equaled that record in January 1988 with the opening of “Phantom of the Opera” in New York. The recipient of multiple Tony Awards, a Grammy Award and the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, he was honored with the Grammy Legends Award in 1990. Lloyd-Webber’s first marriage was in 1971 to Sarah Hugill; it ended in divorce in 1984. His second wife, singer Sarah Brightman, auditioned for his show ‘Cats’, and married him two years later on 22 March 1984 (“I fell in love with her three-octave soprano,” he quipped). Her growing success as a performer took her away from home, and eventually Andrew left Sarah for another woman. On 15 February 1991, he married his third wife, Madeleine Gurdon who was equipped to play hostess and give the millionaire tycoon a much-needed hair and wardrobe make-over. He manages to have remarkably good relationships with both his ex-wives.
In March 1998, he revealed that he had been suffering from a mystery illness for the last ten years which left him, at times, chronically ill.
The Andrew Lloyd Webber and T.S. Eliot musical “Cats,” which earned $1.43 billion around the world and was long the butt of David Letterman jokes, lived beyond its 20th birthday as London’s longest-running musical.
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