What Andrew Lloyd Webber’s memoir reveals
Andrew Lloyd Webber knows exactly what you think about him.
In his memoir “Unmasked,” out this week from Harper Books, the composer behind “The Phantom of the Opera” and other earworm-rich Broadway musicals extensively quotes negative reviews of his shows.
Love him or hate him, you likely will hear Lloyd Webber’s name a lot this month: The book’s release coincides with his 70th birthday and a four-disc compilation album. NBC plans to air the documentary “Andrew Lloyd Webber: Tribute to a Superstar” on March 28, before its live TV performance of “Jesus Christ Superstar” on Easter weekend.
The book may be a 500-page doorstopper, but it only covers his career up to 1988. Missing are his (recently ended) feud with Patti LuPone, his illness and the ill-fated sequel to “Phantom.” Lloyd Webber hasn’t committed to a second volume just yet, but for now there are plenty of stories to explore in “Unmasked.” Here are five.
He Used to Walk His Cat in London
Lloyd Webber grew up in a cramped, bohemian apartment, where frequent visitors included his Aunt Vi, who claimed to have written the first gay cookbook. His family had a cat: Perseus, “a wonderful square-faced, sealpointed Siamese Boy.” When he was about seven, Lloyd Webber began to walk Perseus around London on a leash. They went to the same patch of grass — a routine so ingrained that when Perseus escaped one day he was found crossing a busy street with the rest of the pedestrians. Years later, as Perseus was dying, Lloyd Webber took the cat for a walk. But by then the traffic system in South Kensington had become dangerously complicated. Perseus hissed at the new traffic lights and turned around back home. The next day he died. Lloyd Webber wrote that he owes “Cats” to two things: his mother’s bedtime reading of T.S. Eliot’s “Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats,” and Perseus.
He Owns Part of a Mountain
As Lloyd Webber’s career took off, an accountant persuaded him to buy a mountainside in Wales, a “supposedly unbeatable tax efficient forestry scheme.” He insisted on planting hardwood rather than baby fir trees, which disrupted the ecosystem and created a sinkhole “of such national importance a large chunk of it had to be roped off.” Then it all burned down.
He Almost Wrote a ‘Thomas the Tank Engine’
One of his favourite books as a child was “Thomas the Tank Engine,” which he described as a British “Little Engine That Could,” with the moral that “a properly brung up engine must be really useful all the time.” Around the time he was working on “Evita,” he decided to make an animated musical TV series of it. Producers thought “Thomas” was too British for global audiences. So he relinquished his rights, which then became a worldwide hit narrated by Ringo Starr. But he did get his train musical: “Starlight Express.”
He Nearly Starred in ‘Amadeus’
While “Cats” was in development, Milos Forman asked Lloyd Webber to star as Mozart in his movie “Amadeus.” Lloyd Webber was so shocked, he replied with a burp. When he learned the offer was real, a panicked Lloyd Webber sought an out. Trevor Nunn, director of “Cats,” told him to ask for all of Mozart’s music to be replaced with his own. They agreed to the demanding diva, before Forman rescued him by saying, “I think Andrew is saying he doesn’t want to play the role.”
In Another Universe, Liza Minnelli Was Evita
The movie adaptation of “Evita” was in the works years before Madonna sang “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” in Alan Parker’s lavish 1996 version. In its earliest days, the film might have starred Liza Minnelli, whose audition was “remarkable.”
“Unmasked” is full of what-ifs like this that offer a glimpse into a parallel universe of Lloyd Webber’s musicals. Bette Midler nearly got her start in “Jesus Christ Superstar.” Twyla Tharp could have choreographed “Cats,” but she hated the music. And Broadway legend Alan Jay Lerner was to write lyrics for “The Phantom of the Opera,” but in 1986, a few days after making plans for work, he was diagnosed with lung cancer and soon died.