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Cast | Creatives
Tim
Rice
Lyrics
Tim Rice was born in 1944. He began songwriting in
1965, in which year the first song he wrote, That's My
Story (tune as well as words), was recorded by a rock
group called the Nightshift whose career never
recovered. That same year he met fellow budding
songwriter Andrew Lloyd Webber. They joined forces
as one could knock out a decent tune, the other had
a way with words. He has written the words for more
than a dozen musicals. The music for the first four was
written by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The first, The Likes
of Us (1965-6), was never performed, but the other
three, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor
Dreamcoat (1968), Jesus Christ Superstar (1969-71)
and Evita (1976-78) became, and indeed remain,
hugely successful all around the world, on both stage
and screen. Feeling certain that they could never top
this lot, the pair went their separate ways in the early
eighties, whereupon ALW immediately topped that
lot with Cats. TR then wrote Blondel (1983) with
Stephen Oliver, which ran for a year in London, but
not for long anywhere else. This was followed in 1986
by Chess, in collaboration with ABBA's Bjorn Ulvaeus
and Benny Andersson. Chess had a healthy run in the
West End but flopped on Broadway in 1988, the New
York Times bloke being particularly forceful in his
disapproval. In 1989 he translated the famous French
musical Starmania into English, which merely resulted
in a hit album - in France. In the '90s he worked
primarily with the Disney empire, contributing lyrics to
the movies Aladdin (music Alan Menken) and The Lion
King (music Elton John) and to the stage shows
Beauty and the Beast (Alan Menken), The Lion King
and Aida (both Sir Elton). Between Disney
commitments he wrote the words for Cliff Richard's Heathcliff (music John Farrar) which toured the UK in
1995-96. He is currently reworking an operatic
musical he has written with Alan Menken (King David),
and on new treatments, for both stage and screen, of
Chess, the New York Times bloke having been
replaced. He also has a brand new idea which may or
may not see the light of day. He has won a variety of
awards, mainly for the wrong things, or for simply
turning up. He lives in London, Cornwall and on the
motorway between the two, has three children, his
own cricket team and a knighthood
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