30 Facts About Tim Rice

Sir Timothy Miles Bindon Rice was born on 10 November 1944 and is an English lyricist and author.

Tim Rice is best known for his collaborations with Disney on Aladdin, The Lion King, the stage adaptation of Beauty and the Beast, and the original Broadway musical Aida; with Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA, with whom he wrote Chess; and with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote, among other shows, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Evita.

Tim Rice wrote lyrics for the Alan Menken musical King David, and for DreamWorks Animation's The Road to El Dorado.

Tim Rice has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, is a 1999 inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and is the 2023 recipient of its Johnny Mercer Award, is a Disney Legend recipient, and is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors.

Tim Rice was born at Shardeloes, a historic English country house near Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England that was requisitioned as a maternity hospital during the Second World War.

Tim Rice was educated at three independent schools: Aldwickbury School in Hertfordshire, St Albans School and Lancing College.

Tim Rice left Lancing 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.

Tim Rice later attended the Sorbonne in Paris for a year.

When EMI producer Norrie Paramor left to set up his own organization in 1968, Tim Rice joined him as an assistant producer, working with, among others, Cliff Richard and The Scaffold.

Tim Rice became famous for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cricket, The Likes of Us, and additional songs for the 2011 West End production of The Wizard of Oz.

Tim Rice has collaborated with Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA on Chess and with Rick Wakeman on the albums 1984 and Cost of Living.

Tim Rice reunited with Andrew Lloyd Webber in 2011 to pen new songs for Lloyd Webber's newest production of The Wizard of Oz which opened in March 2011 at the London Palladium.

Tim Rice has since rejected working with Lloyd Webber again, claiming their partnership has run its course, and they are "no longer relevant as a team".

On 9 November 1979, Tim Rice hosted a highly publicised edition of Friday Night, Saturday Morning on the BBC which had a heated debate on the newly released film Monty Python's Life of Brian, a film that had been banned by many local councils and caused protests throughout the world with accusations that it was blasphemous.

Tim Rice has been a frequent guest panellist for many years on the radio panel games Just a Minute and Trivia Test Match.

Tim Rice wrote the foreword to the book Why Do Buses Come In Threes by Rob Eastaway and Jeremy Wyndham, and featured prominently in Tony Hawks's One Hit Wonderland, where he co-wrote the song which gave Hawks a top twenty hit in Albania.

In October 2011, and November 2016 to February 2017, Tim Rice was guest presenter for the BBC Radio 2 show Sounds of the '60s, standing in for regular presenter Brian Matthew who was unwell.

Tim Rice 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.

Tim Rice took part in the Bush Theatre's 2011 project Sixty Six Books for which he wrote a piece based upon a book of the King James Bible.

Tim Rice is the current president of The London Library, the largest independent lending library in Europe.

Tim Rice is a patron of the London-based drama school, Associated Studios and is a patron of Thame Players Theatre along with Bruce Alexander.

In 2008, Tim Rice received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Tim Rice is a fellow member of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors.

On 19 August 1974, Tim Rice married Jane Artereta, daughter of Colonel Alexander Henry McIntosh, OBE, and former wife of producer and talent agent Michael Whitehall, the couple having met while working at Capital Radio.

Tim Rice has won awards for her conservation work with red squirrels.

Tim Rice has a second daughter, Zoe Joan Eleanor, from a relationship with Nell Sully, an artist.

Tim Rice has a third daughter, Charlotte Cordelia Violet Christina, from a relationship with Laura-Jane Foley, a writer.

Tim Rice raised funds for the Euro No campaign in 2000.

In 2015, Tim Rice expressed his indebtedness to the journalist Angus McGill as "the man responsible for Andrew Lloyd Webber and I having our first song recorded".

Tim Rice and colleagues filled in 5,000 entry forms overnight voting for the contestant who was a singer, and delivered them to McGill, who supervised the competition.