Tim Rice

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Tim Rice
Birth name Timothy Miles Bindon Rice
Born 10 November 1944 (1944-11-10) (age 64)
Origin Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England
Genre(s) Musical theatre, Film, Television
Occupation(s) Lyricist

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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[edit] 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]

[edit] 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[2].

He is now working on writing 8 lyrics to The Nutcracker with music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky. The working title is The Nutcracker: The Untold Story.[3]

[edit] 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. 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 is a Sunderland A.F.C. supporter, and was awarded an honorary doctorate of letters by the University of Sunderland at a ceremony at the Stadium of Light in November 2006.[4] He was also a supporter of the Conservative Party.

Rice runs his own amateur Heartaches Cricket Club, the name inspired by an Elvis Presley song.

[edit] Musical theatre


'The Likes of Us' was his first ever musical was written with Andrew Lloyd Webber but was not released in the west end.

[edit] Film and television work

In addition to adaptations of his theatrical productions, Rice has worked on several original film and television projects:

[edit] Lyricist

[edit] 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
Awards and achievements
Preceded by
Stephen Sondheim
for Sweeney Todd		 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics
1979-1980
for Evita		 Succeeded by
none
Preceded by
Ronnie Corbett		 President of Lord's Taverners
1988-1990		 Succeeded by
Leslie Crowther

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Tim Rice (1999). Oh, What a Circus: The Autobiography. Coronet Books. ISBN 0-340-65459-7. 
  2. ^ a b Disney Legends — Sir Tim Rice
  3. ^ Time Rice. "The Nutcracker: The Untold Story". http://www.timrice.co.uk/nc.html. Retrieved on 11 June 2009. 
  4. ^ "University honour for songwriter". BBC News. 27 November 2006. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/wear/6188564.stm. 
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