I've been reading Andrew Lloyd Webber's autobiography. Here's a few discussion points. (Sorry if these have been discussed before, I'm late to the party).
In the 1970s, a few dance clubs used "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" as their closing song. He doesn't say whether this was the final dance song or music played as the patrons left the club. And he doesn't say if it was just instrumental or if it was Julie Covington's original version.
London Cats 2nd Preview - “Elaine Stritch walked noisily out at the interval proclaiming Cats was a total disaster.” (This after he gave her a paycheck to do a voiceover for the Song & Dance recording).
I bet she knew that Grizabella had been written with Judi Dench in mind and she might have a chance to play it on Broadway, but upon seeing it, she realized how little Grizabella has to do in the show and left. I had always wondered how Judi Dench would play the role because she's not strong on power ballads. ALW says in the book that if she had continued in the show, he would have orchestrated it more like an Edith Piaf song.
Discussing our Miss Betty Buckley. (Keep in mind that Sondheim always hated what she did to his songs).
[quote]She seriously got it into her head that Trevor and the rest of the company were ostracizing her. The reason for Betty’s isolation was rather more mundane. Grizabella doesn’t have much to do apart from deliver her big song. Not so the rest of the cast. One serious problem appeared to be becoming intractable. The “alienated” Betty Buckley for some reason continued to sing “Memory” in every way conceivable other than give the audience the big notes. I finally pulled her aside and said "Just sing the fucking song!”
Betty replaced Bernadette Peters on Broadway in "Song & Dance." A bit of subtle shading from ALW: "I love Betty to bits but I’m not sure that she was born to play a twenty-something English girl from Muswell Hill.”
He states that Bernadette Peters had flu-like symptoms when she recorded "Song & Dance." Isn't that what they all say when the vocals don't sound so great? It's what they said about Tyne Daly's Gypsy and I think they said it about Julie Andrews on one of the "My Fair Lady" recordings.
He says that Milos Forman wanted him to play Mozart in the movie Amadeus. This is hard to believe. A composer with no acting experience is chosen to play a lead in a movie about a classical music composer, a subject which 1980s audiences may have no interest in whatsoever?
He seems to have a love/hate relationship with Tim Rice. Even with all ALW's success, he seems like a battered wife begging her abusive husband to take her back. Tim's just not that into you.
The book ends at the opening of Phantom of the Opera, but he does do a quick final chapter on his work since then. I found it interesting that he mentioned every show *except* Whistle Down The Wind. He quickly mentions: Aspects of Love, The Woman In White, Sunset Boulevard, The Beautiful Game, Love Never Dies, Stephen Ward, producing Bombay Dreams. I saw Whistle Down The Wind and I thought it was better than Love Never Dies and The Beautiful Game. He even had a hit single with Boyzone doing "No Mater What" from the show. What's up with that?
In addition, to his neediness for Tim Rice, he kind of comes off as a jerk in his marriages. He was married to his first wife, who seemed very devoted to him, then he just sort of fell in love with Sarah Brightman (who was also married). So they both divorced and married. Then he says, "There had been publicity about Sarah’s affair with the original Phantom keyboard player and, hugely fond of her as I still am, things weren’t the same for me after that." So they divorced and he remarried for a third time. It's almost like he could cheat on his wife but she wasn't allowed to do it.
All in all, he's had a very charmed life. Many doors easily opened for him and he had many amazing opportunities.
