Andrew Lloyd Webber is an English composer and theatrical producer and director who has an estimated net worth of $1.2 billion. He is best known for his stage musicals and the film adaptations Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), Cats (1994), Evita (1996), and The Phantom of the Opera (2004). His shows have been performed in 148 countries around the world. From the 1960s to the 2000s he has been updating his style, ranging from classical to rock, pop, and jazz, with the inclusion of choral-like performances in his musicals. Since 1997, he has been Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber and can sit in the House of Lords in Parliament in London, England. His memoir, Unmasked, was published in 2018.

In 1977 Lloyd Webber founded the Really Useful Company (later Really Useful Group), which manages his productions since then and also works with other producers and authors. The company is owned exclusively by him and is involved in professional theater, amateur and school productions, film and television, and records and publishing. Really Useful Group had earnings of $8.16 million in 2019, $5.04 million in 2018, $4.15 million in 2017, $6.35 million in 2016, $5.62 million in 2015, and $14.8 million in 2012. Meanwhile, it lost $1,866,239 in 2014 and $5,941,047 in 2013. The company's assets include seven London theaters that he restored.

Lloyd Webber was born on March 22, 1948, in the South Kensington district in London, England, to Jean Johnstone, a piano teacher, and violinist, and William Lloyd Webber, an organist and composer who eventually became director of the London College of Music. He has a brother, Julian Lloyd Webber, a former concert cellist and currently Principal of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Lloyd Webber learned to play various instruments at home and began composing at an early age. He continued his music studies at elementary school, and at nine years old was able to play the organ and assisted his father during performances.

In 1964 Lloyd Webber went to Magdalen College to study history, but a year later dropped out to enroll at the Royal College of Music and compose musicals and songs. In 1968, he had his first success with the musical comedy Joseph and the Amazing Techicolor Dreamcoat, a pop composition for children that gained worldwide recognition in a later full-length version. Lloyd Webber became famous in 1971 with his rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar, a work that blended classical with rock music to represent the story of Jesus’ life.

His next successful work was the musical biopic Evita, based on the life of Eva Peron, wife of Argentine former President Juan Domingo Perón. This production received two Tony Awards for best musical and best score, and a Grammy for best cast show album. In 1981 he presented Cats, based on Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats and other poems by Thomas Stearns Eliot. It was on stage for 21 seasons until 2002 and won two Tony Award for best musical and best score and a Grammy Award for best original Broadway cast recording. Cats was played 8,949 times in London and 7,485 in New York.

In 1986 Lloyd Webber released his most successful musical, The Phantom of the Opera, based on the homonym book by Gaston Leroux. It is the longest-running Broadway musical in history, a record previously held by Cats and Jesus Christ Superstar, and the second most financially successful Broadway show of all time with revenue of $6 billion as of December 2017. The play was translated into several languages and produced in more than twenty countries. The Phantom of the Opera won best musical at Tony Awards and is still on stage.

His other musicals included The Likes of Us (1965); Jeeves (1975); Tell Me on a Sunday (1979); Song and Dance (1982); Starlight Express (1984), inspired by The Railway series books by The Wilbert Awdry; Cricket (1986); Aspects of Love (1989), based on the David Garnett's novel; Sunset Boulevard (1993), which won Tony Awards for best music and best score and is an adaptation of the film; Whistle Down the Wind (1998); The Beautiful Game (2000); The Woman in White (2004), based on the Wilkie Collins’s novel; Love Never Dies (2010); The Wizard of Oz (2011), an adaptation of the film; Stephen Ward (2013); and School of Rock (2015), inspired by the 2003 movie of the same name. Besides, in 2018 was aired a live telecast of Jesus Christ Superstar, and as a co-producer Lloyd Webber received a Creative Arts Emmy Award when the show was named best live variety special. Because of that, he became one of only 15 individuals to earn an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony). He later worked as an executive producer on a film adaptation of Cats (2019). His new play, Cinderella, will be on stage in June 2021.

In 1992 he was knighted Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber, and in 1997 was created an honorary life peer as Baron Lloyd Webber of Syndmonton, in the County of Hampshire. In addition to the aforementioned awards, he won an Oscar for Best Music in the category Original Song ("You Must Love Me") for the film Evita in 1996, and a Grammy for Requiem, a requiem mass written in memory of his father, as Best Contemporary Composition in 1986. Lloyd Webber was also given a Grammy Legend Award in 1990.

He was married three times and has five children. His first wife was Sarah Hugill, who married him in 1971. Together had two a daughter and a son, Imogen (1977) and Nicholas (1979). The couple divorced in 1983. Next year he married singer and frequent collaborator Sarah Brightman, who played in The Phantom of the Opera and Cats while with Lloyd Webber. They divorced in 1990, after which he married Madeleine Gurdon in 1991. Gurdon and Lloyd Webber have three children, Alastair Adam (1992), William Richard (1993), Isabella Aurora (1996).

Sources: IMDB, Really Useful, Linkedin, Really Useful Group, Really Useful Group (2), Really Useful Group (3), Really Useful Group (4), Classic FM, Britannica, Broadway.org, Forbes, Andrew Lloyd Webber's, Cinderella, Express, Celebrity Net Worth.

This article was updated on March 31, 2021 by Andrés Taurian

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