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Revision as of 00:26, 20 July 2004 by Ryachanira (talk | contribs) (→Personal History)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber of Sydmonton (born March 22, 1948) is a highly successful British composer of musical theatre. Throughout his career he has produced 15 plays, the scores to 2 films (Gumshoe and The Odessa File) and a a Latin Requiem Mass. He has also accumulated a number of honors of which the following are most notable: Seven Tony awards, three , an Oscar, an International Emmy, six Olivier awards, and a Golden Globe Award.
Personal History
Lloyd Webber was born on March 22, 1948 in South Kensington, England. He was the son of composer William Southcombe Lloyd Webber and a music teacher, Jean Hermione Lloyd-Webber, and brother of cellist Julian Lloyd Webber, born in 1951.
His first wife was Sarah Hugill, related to the former royal Tudor family. They married on July 24, 1972 and had two children, Imogen (born March 31, 1977) and Nicholas (born July 2, 1979). Lloyd Webber and Hugill were divorced in 1983. His second wife was the soprano Sarah Brightman. They were married on March 22, 1984 and divorced in 1990. He has remarried to Madeleine Gurdon on February 1, 1991, to whom he is still married, and had three more children: Alastair (born May 3, 1992), William (born August 24, 1993), and Isabella (born April 30, 1996).
He was knighted in 1992 and created a life peer (Baron of Sydmonton) in 1997.
Professional Career
He had a succession of hit shows in the 1970s and 1980s, in collaboration with lyricist Tim Rice. Their first big success was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1968). Lloyd Webber and Rice continued to collaborate and later produced Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita, both of which were released as albums before being brought to the stage. Subsequently, Lloyd Webber parted company with Rice and experimented with other lyricists on works such as Cats, Starlight Express, and The Phantom of the Opera, all of which ran for many years in London's West End and on Broadway. Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar have been turned into films with The Phantom of the Opera to join them in December 2004.
His many other musical theatre works include Aspects of Love, Sunset Boulevard, Whistle Down the Wind, Song and Dance, and The Beautiful Game. He has also composed for film. In 1984 he took a different music style and composed a Requiem.
In 2002, he produced a musical Bombay Dreams with Indian music composer AR Rahman. The musical celebrated its first birthday at the Apollo Victoria Theatre on Jun 19, 2003.