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Tim Rice

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Sir Timothy Miles Bindon Rice (born 10 November 1944) is an English lyricist for musical theatre, a radio presenter, television gameshow panelist and an author.

Rice was born in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, England, and he was educated at Aldwickbury school, St Albans School and Lancing College. He is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita, and his work for The Walt Disney Company with Sir Elton John. He also collaborated with Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson on Chess.

His lyrics have been widely recognised for their innovation and clarity of expression ^{[citation needed]}, varied in style from the pseudo-historical Evita to the simpler lyrics for The Lion King soundtrack. He is often regarded as one of the few contemporary masters of lyric-writing, comparable to other critically acclaimed lyrcists such as Stephen Sondheim ^{[citation needed]}.

He was a co-founder of the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles and served as editor from 1977 to 1996. He has also been a frequent guest panelist 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 Marylebone Cricket Club 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' One Hit Wonderland, where he co-wrote the song which gave Hawks a top twenty hit in Albania.

Rice was famously interviewed by Dom Joly in the cult British sketch show Trigger Happy TV. Whilst discussing Rice's autobiography somewhere near Kensington Church Street in London, Dom feigns a severe migraine, prompting Rice to ask "are you OK? - you're not about to die are you?" Dom attempts to continue the interview but after some moments he wanders off declaring, "I'm sorry I can't do this anymore, it's not my scene" - leaving Rice to ponder, "is that normal?"

[edit] Trivia

Rice was inducted into the Songwriters' Hall of Fame in 1999.
In 2002, he was named a Disney Legend.
His daughter is best-selling author Eva Rice.
Twice wrote the lyrics to the best-selling album of the year in the U.S. First for Jesus Christ Superstar in 1970, then for The Lion King in 1994.
Tim Rice is a Sunderland AFC supporter.