70 FACTS FOR
He has written 20 award-winning musicals, owns six West End theatres and is worth around £750million. As Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber turns 70 today, here are 70 facts about the musical impresario...
1 He named his Really Useful Company after a phrase from Thomas the Tank Engine stories. 2 He’s a holder of the prestigious EGOT: an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony.
3 His second wife, soprano Sarah Brightman, used to be a member of risque TV dance troupe Hot Gossip.
4 The first records he ever heard were Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker Suite and Elvis Presley’s Jailhouse Rock.
5 Musical prodigy Andrew was on the front cover of Nursery World magazine with a violin aged five. 6 He began playing the French horn and writing his own music at six.
7 He wrote his first stage musical in 1961, titled Cinderella Up the Beanstalk and Most Everywhere Else.
8 The Likes Of Us, based on the life of Dr Barnardo, was the first musical Andrew wrote with Tim Rice, in 1965.
9 Failing to find backing, it wasn’t performed until 2005, when Stephen Fry took the role of the narrator.
10 When it is performed now by amateur companies, some of the profits raised goes to the Barnardo’s charity.
11 The theme to ITV’s The South Bank Show was taken from a composition by Andrew and his cellist brother Julian.
12 On the original Jesus Christ Superstar album, Jesus was sung by Deep Purple’s Ian Gillan.
13 In the first West End production, in 1972, EastEnders and Just Good Friends star Paul Nicholas starred as Christ.
14 And in Sweden the same year, Mary Magdalene was played by Abba’s Agnetha Faltskog. 15 When JCS was filmed again in 1999, Rik Mayall played King Herod.
16 In the early 1970s, the Vatican’s radio station played the Jesus Christ Superstar album, to the disapproval of the official Vatican newspaper.
17 Lloyd Webber has starred on This Is Your Life twice, with Eamonn Andrews in 1980 and Michael Aspel in 1994.
18 Don’t Cry For Me Argentina was first recorded by Julie Covington and later by The Carpenters, Olivia NewtonJohn and Tom Jones.
19 During the Falklands War, British troops sang: “You don’t frighten me Argentina/ The truth is we will defeat you.”
20 For three weeks, Covington’s version was kept off number one by David Soul’s Don’t Give Up on Us.
21 According to Andrew, before she was PM, Margaret Thatcher used to stand at the back of Evita for the end of the first act and the beginning of the second. 22 He supports Leyton Orient FC.
23 Sting began his musical career playing bass for a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat.
24 Donny Osmond says his most embarrassing showbiz moment was when his loincloth fell off during Joseph.
25 Ian “H” Watkins from Steps, Gareth Gates, Stephen Gately and Joe McElderry have all starred in Joseph. 26 He is the only composer to have six productions running in London’s West End at the same time. 27 He was a Conservative life peer but only ever voted 42 times. 28 Cats is based on T. S. Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats. 29 Dame Judi Dench was set to play Grizabella for Cats’ original run in the West End, but pulled out after snapping her Achilles tendon. 30 Andrew took out a second mortgage on his home to get Cats off the ground. 31 A theatre goer in the US sued Cats after alleging the actor who played Rum Tum Tugger gyrated his pelvis in her face. 32 Cats’ first Broadway production used 3,247lb of yak hair for costumes. 33 Two years ago, he fell out with Nicole Scherzinger quit her role in Cats to appear on the X Factor.
34 On Cats v The Lion King, Andrew has said: “There is no debate about who were the first anthropomorphized felines on Broadway.” 35 His childhood dream was to be Chief Inspector of Ancient Monuments. 36 After surgery for prostate cancer,