Andrew Lloyd Webber is possibly the most successful English composer in modern musical theatre. I wouldn’t even attempt to list the series of awards he has won with such shows as Evita, Cats and The Phantom of the Opera.
Family life
Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, in full Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber of Sydmonton was born in 1948 in South Kensington, London.
Andrew comes from a musical family. His father, William, was an organist, composer and director of London College of Music. His mother, Jean, was a piano teacher and violinist; she ran a Kensington prep school where pupils later included Hugh Grant and Princes William and Harry. William and Jean married during World War II and both parents were clear music enthusiasts. They both worked, and it was Jean’s mother, Molly, who looked after the boys and ran the house.
Andrew’s younger brother, Julian, is a British solo cellist and advocate for music education. He is now the principal of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.
Julian recalls his brother having real tantrums as a child; “if he couldn’t get his way over something, he would wear people down and make people give in.” He admits that the tantrums, anxieties and obsessiveness are still part of Andrew’s personality and claims that these traits are “one of the secrets of his success”. Andrew needed to prove himself in a family where ambition and dissatisfaction existed side by side. His mother taught gifted children every day and didn’t believe that Andrew had a particularly special musical talent. Her constant search for gifted children outside her home affected her sons. “There were moments when we sort of felt there was nobody really interested in us,” says Andrew. “It always seemed to be other people.” Of these, no one was more important than the pianist, John Lill. John grew up in the East End of London and gradually became part of the Lloyd Webber household. He was almost like an adopted elder brother.
In Andrew’s memoir, Unmasked, he revealed that he has contemplated committing suicide as a young boy. At 15 years old, he experienced lots of self-doubt and became “deeply depressed” by how his mother was obsessed with the musical talents of her students. On one occasion, he stole pills from his parents, then got more from the local pharmacist and was going to end his life after taking a ride on the London Underground. But once the train reached Suffolk, his depression lifted enough, and he regained the strength to head back home. He says that a visit to the local church assured him that “things weren’t so bad after all.”
Early interests
From a young age, Andrew developed three passions that were to shape his life: art, musical theatre and architecture.
At three-years-old, he began playing the piano and violin; later, he played the French horn. By the age of six he began to write his own music; he was known for producing short musical entertainments for his family.
Young Andrew was able to play the organ and helped his father during performances. He was also exposed to the world of theatre by his Aunt Viola, an actress. He composed his first musical when he was just thirteen years old; it was named ‘Cinderella Up The Beanstalk And Most Everywhere Else’.
Education
By the age of fifteen, Andrew was already working on his own musicals and his father enrolled him part-time at the Eric Gilder School of Music.
As a child, Andrew dreamt of becoming England’s chief inspector of ancient monuments. So, in 1965 he entered Westminster School as a Queen’s Scholar. “At school I was considered to be off-the radar for liking the sort of musicals I did” he recalls. He claims that nobody else liked musicals but he “always rather enjoyed being in a world where I was fighting a very unfashionable corner.” Clearly, he liked the idea of being an ‘outsider’.
After leaving Westminster School, Andrew won an exhibition to read history at Magdalen College in Oxford University. Yet, his true calling pulled him in another direction and Andrew dropped out after one term.
He began his studies at the Royal College of Music. That same year, he met Tim Rice; this was a life changing encounter. Tim was five years older, taller and more socially confident. He was skilled in writing catchy lyrics to Andrew’s music. In 1965, they began working on their first musical, The Likes of Us, which didn’t reach the stage at the time.
Career
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat
In the summer of 1967, the head of the Music Department at Colet Court, St Paul’s Junior School, Alan Doggett, asked Andrew to write a religious concert for the school choir. Andrew asked his friend Tim to write the lyrics for the project; the pair created a ‘pop-cantata’ version of what would one day become Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat. The musical retold the biblical story of Joseph and his coat of many colours with its strong rock and roll influence. This was an immediate success!
Jesus Christ Superstar
Sticking with a biblical theme, Tim and Andrew’s next project was Jesus Christ Superstar which was originally developed as a demonstration disc for Decca Records. It began the Rice-Lloyd Webber tradition of recording first, then producing.
Jesus Christ Superstar blended a classical style with rock music to tell the story of Jesus’s life from Judas perspective. This was not a typical idea for Broadway at the time, making it highly controversial.
Tim and Andrew couldn’t find anyone willing to finance a stage musical, so they took their second-best offer: a chance to record an album for MCA. This was successful enough to warrant a West End production in 1973. This show became the longest-running musical in British theatrical history.
Evita
Tim and Andrew then temporarily split, and Andrew teamed up with British playwright Alan Ayckbourn on Jeeves (1974). This found little success and so in 1976, Tim and Andrew reunited to create Evita as a concept album.
Evita repeated the pattern of Jesus Christ Superstar, with its record album followed by a theatrical run in the West End and then on Broadway. The show was based on a true story which followed an actress who married Argentinean dictator Juan Peron. Evita faced the criticisms that have consistently tormented Andrew’s compositions; he was accused of ‘borrowing’ and imitating other songs.
Cats
The 1980s saw the end of the Rice-Lloyd Webber collaboration. Cats was Andrew’s next major musical which was based on T.S. Eliot’s poetry. This time, the show came before the album and was produced at New London theatre. The stage was designed as a junkyard with giant bottles and cans scattered around a large-scale tire; the cats were dressed in exotic costumes who danced up and down the aisles. The West End production of Cats surpassed Jesus Christ Superstar as the longest running British musical production; it was on stage for 21 seasons!
Starlight Express
Starlight Express followed Cats, in which performers danced on roller skates to depict toy trains. While the show didn’t wow the critics, it has remained popular with audiences and the show ran in London for 761 performances.
The Phantom of the Opera
Andrew then composed The Phantom of the Opera, a popular musical version of Gaston Leroux’s novel Le Fantôme de l’Opéra. The sung-through musical debuted in 1986 and it has surpassed Cats to become the longest-running Broadway show.
Personal life
Andrew was married to his first wife, Sarah Hugill, for twelve years, before meeting Sarah Brightman whilst conducting Cats. At the time, Andrew had two young children, Imogen and Nicholas. Imogen is currently a political commentator and author based in New York and Nicholas is a composer having written several musicals including The Little Prince and Fat Friends: The Musical.
In 1983, Andrew left his first wife to marry Sarah Brightman who was later casted as the female lead in The Phantom of the Opera. Sarah 1 (as his ex-wife became known) stayed with the children at home in Syndmonton, while Sarah Brightman moved into Andrew’s flat in London. They quietly married at the register office in Kingsclere, the village next to Syndmonton.
In the following years, the couple faced issues in their marriage and whilst Andrew was going through a rocky patch, his friends introduced him to Madeleine Gurdon, a former equestrian sportswoman. Sarah was shattered when Andrew left her, but they continued to work together.
Andrew loved spending time with Madeleine and states that “she had – still has – a mind like a razor." The couple have now been married for 29 years and they had three children: Alastair, William and Isabella. Andrew appreciates that Madeleine provided a ray of light through dark times. “There is a world outside the Tony Awards and I think that’s what Madeleine brings to me.”
She stood by him like a rock through grisly career moments and his battle with prostate cancer. His health struggles left him with suicidal thoughts. “It was absolute agony and utterly despairing.” He says that “you have all those ridiculous painkillers and none of them working and you just think, ‘I shall take the whole lot of them.” Most people assumed that he would not compose again. Then he turned the corner and overcame his drug addictions. He returned back to his roots with a new musical, School Of Rock.
Achievements
The Really Useful Group
The Really Useful Company (later the Really Useful Group) was founded by Andrew in 1977. This group owns 7 West End theatres; it produces and promotes Andrew’s shows and music around the world.
Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation
Andrew found this foundation in 1992 which aims “to promote the arts, culture and heritage for the public benefit by all charitable means.” It provides grants and support to organisations and individuals and provides education to those who are interested in the musical field. Since the launch Andrew has funded all the activities. It is clear to see that he is deeply passionate in empowering future generations through the arts.
Knighthood
In 1992, he was knighted Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber for services to the theatre around the world. In 1997 he was created an honorary life peer which gave him the title Baron Lloyd Webber, of Syndmonton in the County of Hampshire.
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