His father, William Southcombe Lloyd Webber, was professor of theory and composition at the Royal College of Music in England. His mother, Jean, was a singer and violinist at the same school. They married on 3rd of October 1942, six years before their first child, Andrew was born. When Andrew was three years old, he started to play the violin. When he was six he composed his own songs and at the age of nine he had a piece of music published in the magazine Music Teacher. It was Andrew's aunt Vi, who turned him on the theatre and especially musical theatre. She took Andrew to the big musicals like My Fair Lady, and to the films like Gigi and South Pacific. Soon after, he built a small theatre at home and wrote musicals for it. After Andrew had examined different school, he decided; he wanted to write music. On the 21 April 1965 Andrew got a letter:
I've been told you're looking for a "with it" writer of lyrics for your songs, and as I've been writing pop songs for a while and particularly enjoy writing the lyrics I wonder if you consider it worth your while meeting me.
The musical was never performed. Just one small, student theatre in Oxford wanted to have the show, but Andrew and Tim were dreaming of West End and answered no. After had done a few unsuccessful songs together, they didn't know what to do. Rice wanted to write pop songs while Lloyd Webber wanted to write another musical. It was then they got a call from Alan Doggett.
Alan Doggett was head of music at Colet Court, a small preparatory school in west London. Alan and Andrew had known each other a long time and now Alan wanted something for an end term concert, something religious.
Andrew and Tim opened the Bible and found the story about Jacob and his son Joseph.
Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice continued to work together. They created Jesus Christ Superstar (1969), a very big success. They started to write Jeeves (1975) but Rice thought
that this wasn't anything for him and therefore Alan Ayckbourn wrote the lyrics. Andrew and Tim tried again with Evita (1976). Also a big success.
At this time Andrew started to work on a new idea. As a young boy he had read the book "Old possum's book of practical cats" by T.S. Eliot. This time all the lyrics were already written.
But there wasn't any story in the songs and Andrew thought of making a concert on television. At the beginning of the summer of 1980 he performed some of the songs at his Sydmonton festival.
After the performance Valery Eliot, T.S. Eliots spouse, gave him some unpublished poems about an unhappy cat called Grizabella. This was the story that he needed. Next year in 1982 he combined two works he had done - Variations (which he had written to his cellist brother Julian 1978) and Tell Me on a Sunday (Don Black wrote the lyrics) - and Song & Dance was created.
His next big work was Starlight Express (1984) and just two years later the romantic Phantom of the Opera (1986).
In 1980 Andrew Lloyd Webber wanted him and Tim Rice to write a musical from the book "Aspects of love" by David Garnett. Rice refused, he wanted to write about the cold war (the musical Chess), and the book was put away.After Phantom opened in London, Lloyd Webber turned back to the book and Aspects of love opened in the West End 1989.
On the 1st February 1991 he married his third wife, Madeleine, after he and Sarah Brightman had divorced.
In 1992 he rewrote Starlight Express. He dropped some songs and added three new ones all dedicated to his son Alastair. The same year he was knighted for his services to the art. His next musical was Sunset Boulevard (1993) based on the film from 1950 with the same title. He and Alan Ayckbourn rewrote Jeeves and called it now By Jeeves. It opened in North America in December 1996. In January 1997 he became Lord Lloyd-Webber of Sydmonton. This last years Andrew Lloyd Webber has written a new musical every second year. The first one was Whistle down the wind which opened the 1st of July 1998 on the Aldwysh theatre in London. Jim Steinman wrote the lyrics this time. The next musical was, his latest, called The beautiful game, a political musical about youths in Northen Ireland. It opened on September 19th 2000. He's latest project is a new musical called Bombay dreams, based on a idea by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Shekhar Kapur. This time he didn't write any music nor lyrics. He is "only" the producer.
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