Sir Timothy Miles Bindon Rice
(born 10 November 1944) is an English Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Tony Award and Grammy Award-winning lyricist, author, radio personality and television gameshow panellist.
He is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
, Jesus Christ Superstar
and Evita
, and his work for The Walt Disney Company with Alan Menken and Elton John.
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TIM RICE TICKETS
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Early life
Rice was born at
Shardeloes, a country house near
Amersham,
Buckinghamshire, England that was requisitioned as a maternity hospital during
World War II. His father Hugh served with the
Eighth Army and reached the rank of
major during
World War II, whilst his mother served in the
WAAF as a photographic interpreter. After the war they both worked for the
de Havilland aircraft company. Rice lived in
Croxley Green,
Radlett and
Hatfield, Hertfordshire as a child and was educated at
Aldwickbury school,
St Albans School and
Lancing College. He left school with
GCE A-Levels in History and French and then started work as an
articled clerk for a law firm in London, having decided not to apply for a university place
[1]
Career
After studying for a year in Paris at the
Sorbonne, Rice joined
EMI Records as a management trainee in 1966. When EMI producer
Norrie Paramor left to set up his own organisation in 1968, Rice joined him as an assistant producer, working with, among others,
Cliff Richard.
He has collaborated with
Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
,
Jesus Christ Superstar
and
Evita
, and his work for
The Walt Disney Company with
Alan Menken and
Elton John. He also collaborated with
Björn Ulvaeus and
Benny Andersson of
ABBA on
Chess
and with
Rick Wakeman on the concept albums
1984
and
Cost of Living
.
Along with his brother Jo and radio presenters
Mike Read and
Paul Gambaccini, he was a co-founder of the
Guinness Book of British Hit Singles
and served as an editor from 1977 to 1996. He has also been a frequent guest panelist for many years on the radio panel games
Just a Minute
and
Trivia Test Match
. Rice often jokes that he is most recognised in America for his appearance in the film
About a Boy
. The film includes several clips from a (real) edition of the game show
Countdown
on which he was the guest adjudicator. His other interests include cricket (he was President of the
MCC in 2002) and maths. He wrote the foreword to the book
Why Do Buses Come In Threes
by
Rob Eastaway and Jeremy Wyndham, and featured prominently in
Tony Hawks'
One Hit Wonderland
, where he co-wrote the song which gave Hawks a top twenty hit in Albania.
He released his autobiography
Oh What a Circus - The Autobiography of Tim Rice
in 1998, which covered his childhood and early adult life until the opening of the original London production of
Evita
in 1978. He is currently working on a sequel, covering his life and career since then.
Rice was made a
Knight Bachelor by
Queen Elizabeth II in 1994
[2] (entitling him to the address "Sir Tim Rice" or "Sir Tim"), was inducted into the
Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1999 and was, in 2002, named a
Disney Legend.
He is writing eight lyrics to
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet,
The Nutcracker
. The working title is
The Nutcracker: The Untold Story
.
[3]
Personal life
Rice married Jane McIntosh on 19 August 1974, but the marriage broke up in the late-1980s after the British tabloid newspapers revealed that he had been conducting an affair with actress/singer
Elaine Paige.
[4] [5] [6] Jane retains the title Lady Rice. They had two children, Eva and Donald.
Eva Rice, who was named after the title character from
Evita
, is the author of the novel
The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets
, which was a finalist for the
British Book Award, "Best Read of the Year".
Rice supports
Sunderland A.F.C. football club, and was awarded an honorary doctorate of letters by the
University of Sunderland at a ceremony at the
Stadium of Light in November 2006.
[7] He was also a supporter of the
Conservative Party, but in 2007 stated that the Conservatives were no longer interested in him and that his relationship with the Party had "irrevocably changed."
[8]
Rice runs his own amateur Heartaches Cricket Club, the name inspired by an
Elvis Presley song.
[9]
Musical theatre
- 1967 - Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber
- 1970 - Jesus Christ Superstar
with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber
- 1976 - Evita
with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber
- 1983 - Blondel
with music by Stephen Oliver
- 1984 - Chess
with music by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus
- 1986 - Cricket
with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber
- 1992 - ''Tycoon
- 1993 - Beauty and the Beast
with lyrics by Howard Ashman and Rice with music by Alan Menken
- 1996 - Heathcliff
with music by John Farrar
- 1997 - The Lion King (musical)
with music by Elton John
- 1997 - King David
with music by Alan Menken
- 2000 - Aida
with music by Elton John
'The Likes of Us' was his first ever musical was written with Andrew Lloyd Webber but was not released in the west end.
Film and television work
In addition to adaptations of his theatrical productions, Rice has worked on several original film and television projects:
- 1992 - Aladdin
- music by Alan Menken. Completed work begun by Howard Ashman.
- 1994 - The Lion King
- music by Elton John, score by Hans Zimmer.
- 2000 - The Road to El Dorado
- Music by Elton John, score by Hans Zimmer and John Powell
Lyricist
- "The Golden Boy" and "The Fallen Priest", recorded on Freddie Mercury's solo album Barcelona
- 1981 concept album 1984
composed by Rick Wakeman and inspired by the George Orwell novel of the same title
- "The Second Time", "The Last One to Leave", "Hot As Sun" and "Falling Down to Earth" on Elaine Paige's 1981 self-titled album
- "All Time High", the theme tune to the James Bond film, Octopussy
, written with John Barry and sung by Rita Coolidge (1983).
Other work
- Co-produced the 1986 London and 1988 Broadway productions of Chess
as a partner in 3 Knights Ltd with Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus.
- Co-produced the 1989 London production of Anything Goes as a partner in Anchorage Productions with Elaine Paige.
- Co-produced, with Andrew Powell, Elaine Paige's 1981 self-titled album
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| colspan="3" style="background: #FFF179;" |Awards and achievements titles
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|- style="text-align:center;"
|width="30%" align="center" rowspan="1"|Preceded by
Stephen Sondheim
for
Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street'''
|width="40%" style="text-align: center;" rowspan="1"|
Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics
1979-1980
for
Evita (musical)
|width="30%" align="center" rowspan="1"| Succeeded by
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