Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber (born March 22, 1948) is a highly successful British composer of musical theatre. Throughout his career he has produced 15 musicals, the scores to two films (Gumshoe and The Odessa File) and a Latin requiem mass. He has also accumulated a number of honors of which the following are most notable: Seven Tony Awards, three Grammy Awards, 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 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. 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 in 1997 as Baron Lloyd-Webber, of Sydmonton in the County of Hampshire. (His peerage title is hyphenated, but his surname is not.)

Professional career

Lord Lloyd-Webber with A.R. Rahman

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. Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), Evita (1996), and most recently The Phantom of the Opera have been made into films.

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 memory of his father who had died in 1982.

Lloyd Webber produced Bombay Dreams with Indian composer AR Rahman in 2002.

Shows

• Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (1968) (Tim Rice)
• Jesus Christ Superstar (1972) (Tim Rice)
• By Jeeves (1975) (Alan Ayckbourn)
• Evita (1976) (Tim Rice)
• Cats (1981) (based on T. S. Eliot in 1939)
• Song and Dance (1982) (Don Black)
• Starlight Express (1984) (Richard Stilgoe)
• The Phantom of the Opera (1986) (Richard Stilgoe/Charles Hart)(based on G. Leroux in 1911)
• Aspects of Love (1989) (Don Black)
• Sunset Boulevard (1993) (Don Black)
• Whistle Down the Wind (1997) (Jim Steinman)
• The Beautiful Game (2000) (Ben Elton)
• Tell Me On A Sunday (2003) (Don Black/Jackie Clune)
• The Woman in White (2004) (David Zippel)

In each case the lyricist is given in brackets.

External links

• Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Group (http://www.reallyuseful.com/)
• A Brief Biography of Lloyd Webber at SBGMusic.com (http://www.sbgmusic.com/html/teacher/reference/composers/webber.html)

References

• Andrew Lloyd Webber's Biography at the Really Useful Group (http://www.reallyuseful.com/rug/andrew)