Tim Rice - Career

Career

After studying for a year in Paris at the Sorbonne, Rice joined EMI Records as a management trainee on 6 June 1966. When EMI producer Norrie Paramor left to set up his own organisation in 1968, Rice joined him as an assistant producer, working with, among others, Cliff Richard. Rice has collaborated with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cricket, and The Likes of Us. For The Walt Disney Company, Rice has collaborated individually with Alan Menken and Elton John, creating productions including Aladdin (winning an Academy Award, Golden Globe and Grammy Award for Song of the Year for the song "A Whole New World") and The Lion King (winning the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Can You Feel the Love Tonight"). In 1996, his collaboration with Lloyd Webber for the film version Evita won Rice his third Academy Award for Best Original Song with the song "You Must Love Me". Rice has also collaborated with Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA on Chess and with Rick Wakeman on the concept albums 1984 and Cost of Living.

Along with his brother Jo and radio presenters Mike Read and Paul Gambaccini, he was a co-founder of the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles and served as an editor from 1977 to 1996. He has also been a frequent guest panellist for many years on the radio panel games Just a Minute and Trivia Test Match. Rice often jokes that he is most recognised in America for his appearance in the film About a Boy. The film includes several clips from a (real) edition of the game show Countdown on which he was the guest adjudicator. His other interests include cricket (he was President of the MCC in 2002) and maths. He 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.

He 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. He is currently working on a sequel, covering his life and career since then.

Rice was made a Knight Bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II in 1994 (entitling him to the address "Sir Tim Rice" or "Sir Tim"), was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1999, and was named a Disney Legend in 2002.

In 2008, Rice received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Tim is writing eight lyrics to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's ballet, The Nutcracker. The working title is The Nutcracker: The Untold Story.

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

He will also be participating in the Bush Theatre's 2011 project Sixty Six where he has written a piece based upon a chapter of the King James Bible

On 15 and 22 October 2011 Rice was guest presenter for the BBC Radio 2 show Sounds of the 60s, standing in for regular presenter Brian Matthew who was unwell.