Tim Rice

Lyricist Tim Rice entered the world on November 10, 1944, in Buckinghamshire, England, and later achieved widespread recognition through his highly productive partnership with composer Andrew Lloyd Webber. During the early 1960s he fronted the obscure pop group the Aardvarks, then took a post at a law firm prior to his initial 1965 alliance with Lloyd Webber on the musical The Likes of Us; that work never reached production, prompting the pair to part ways temporarily while Rice joined EMI Records. Their paths converged again in 1968 for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, a pop musical drawn from the Biblical story of Joseph; the first staging lasted only 20 minutes at London's Colet Court School, after which expanded versions at Westminster's Central Hall and St. Paul's Cathedral prompted a Decca cast recording released in early 1969.

The duo's subsequent effort, the 1970 rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, propelled them to global prominence; initially released as a double album spotlighting Murray Head, Deep Purple's Ian Gillan, and Yvonne Elliman, the set reached the top of the American pop charts, leading to major stage productions on Broadway and in London's West End. The West End mounting opened on August 9, 1972, at the Palace Theater and eventually eclipsed Oliver! as the longest-running British theater musical. A feature film adaptation of Jesus Christ Superstar arrived in 1973, the same year Rice and Lloyd Webber launched work on a musical about Eva Peron, wife of Argentine president Juan Peron; the resulting 1976 album Evita, buoyed by Julie Covington's international chart-topping single "Don't Cry for Me Argentina," preceded the show's mid-1978 premiere at the Prince Edward Theater by nearly two years, after which the Broadway version captured seven Tony Awards.

Rice's following major stage work, 1983's Blondel, was created with composer Stephen Oliver, while his next project, Chess, paired him with former ABBA members Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. This Cold War-inspired musical first appeared on a 1984 album that yielded the Elaine Paige/Barbara Dickson U.K. number one "You Know Him So Well" and Murray Head's U.S. chart hit "One Night in Bangkok." The stage production succeeded Evita at the Prince Edward Theater in 1986 and ran for three years, though its Broadway incarnation collapsed financially after only 68 performances. Rice and Lloyd Webber reunited once more in 1986 for Cricket, a 25-minute comedy commissioned for the Queen's 60th birthday, yet Rice otherwise kept a low profile until he stepped in for the late Howard Ashman to finish songs for the 1992 Disney animated film Aladdin. The soundtrack's "A Whole New World," composed with Alan Menken, ascended to the top of the U.S. charts and earned an Academy Award.

Still at Disney, Rice next joined forces with Elton John on 1993's The Lion King; the highest-grossing animated film ever made, it also secured an Oscar for Best Original Song with the hit "Can You Feel the Love Tonight?" In 1994 Rice and Menken supplied additional numbers for the Broadway staging of Beauty and the Beast, drawn from the 1991 Disney blockbuster, while The Lion King reached Broadway in 1997. In between, Rice worked with composer John Farrar on Heathcliff, a musical adapted from Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights that surfaced first as a 1995 album starring Cliff Richard before its London stage debut the next year. He and Menken collaborated again on King David, issued on LP in 1997 yet staged only for limited previews. Rice later rejoined Elton John for the 1998 Broadway musical Aida and the 2000 animated feature The Road to El Dorado.