Andrew Lloyd Webber, turning 70, looks back at smashing career in 'Unmasked'

As he approaches his 70th birthday on March 22, Andrew Lloyd Webber has decided the time is right to share some memories (sorry).

And yes, the story behind Memory, from Cats, or at least Barbra Streisand’s rendition of it, is one of the juicier tales in Unmasked (Harper, 487 pp., ★★★ out of four), Lloyd Webber’s meticulously rendered memoir of his life and fabulous career — up to the opening of The Phantom of the Opera in 1986.

(He says he planned to write a single-volume autobiography, but “verbosity” got in the way. He wraps up the ensuing 30 years in a mindbogglingly brief final chapter that may presage a sequel.)

Even if the 1970s and ’80s marked the creative pinnacle for Lloyd Webber (and early collaborator, lyricist Tim Rice), the British composer/musical impresario has been enjoying a recent revival. In 2017, four of his shows — Sunset Boulevard, Cats, School of Rock and Phantom — were hoofing it on Broadway at the same time. And on April 1, Easter Sunday, NBC will resurrect the 1970 Lloyd Webber/Rice rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar with a live broadcast starring John Legend.

While hardly universally beloved by critics, no one can deny Lloyd Webber knows how to grab an audience — through spectacle, bombast and hummable show tunes. Unmasked (the title is a play on Phantom’s signature facial gear) will tickle music and theater geeks. It’s an insider’s inside account, highly readable, thanks to Lloyd Webber’s affable, intelligent voice, but disappointingly discreet when it comes to personal gossip.

The fact that Tim Rice was an apparent stud who had to fight off women is one of its more amusing revelations. When it comes to his own relationships — falling in love with and marrying his first, teenage bride, Sarah Hugill, and then famously leaving her for Phantom star Sarah Brightman — well, let’s just say Lloyd Webber seems more comfortable extolling his love for ecclesiastical architecture and his foresight in securing “Grand Rights” to his shows, which helped make him a very, very rich man. Some impatient readers may find Unmasked more of a door-stopper than a show-stopper.

We journey through the enfant terrible's somewhat eccentric childhood as a young musical buff, and before long he and Rice are ginning up Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, which began life as a piece for a local school choir.

Some highlights:

► Lloyd Webber hastily scrawled the Jesus Christ Superstar theme chords on a paper napkin in a London restaurant called Carlo’s Place.

► During an early L.A. run of Evita, Lloyd Webber fretted about star Patti LuPone’s “diction” and feared she wasn’t “caressing and seducing” the audience during Don’t Cry for Me Argentina. When it opened on Broadway, the show received “excoriating” reviews, he writes, and then went on to win seven Tony awards, including one for LuPone.

► Streisand, who was thinking of recording Memory, insisted on seeing Cats in London incognito in 1981. After Act 1, she asked for a glass of milk (in lieu of the offered champagne), but before anyone could fill the request, she pleaded claustrophobia, fled the theater and missed Memory during Act 2.

A few months later the star showed up to record the song; Lloyd Webber persuaded the reluctant diva to sing it in one take with a full orchestra. The result was electrifying. “There can’t have been anyone in the room with sedentary hair on the back of their neck,” he writes. 

The next day was spent "revoicing," with Streisand "constantly finding some tiny fault or other" with her performance. Sitting in the vocal booth, she asked if she could stand for the big "Touch me" verse.

"Barbra," joked the future British knight, "most artists kneel when they record my songs."