Music industry After studying for a year in Paris at the
Sorbonne, Rice joined
EMI Records as a management trainee in 1966. In the liner notes of the 2006 CD compilation ''That's my Story'', (Sunbeam Catalogue No.: SBRCD5017) Rice notes that he played tambourine on
Ross Hannaman's "I'll give all my Love to Southend"), whom he briefly managed. When EMI producer
Norrie Paramor left to set up his own organization in 1968, Rice joined him as an assistant producer, working with, among others,
Cliff Richard and
the Scaffold.
Musical theatre 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.
Joseph and
Superstar were additionally known as two of the first hit musicals that drew their sound from the rock and pop music that became embedded in culture in the 1960s. For
The Walt Disney Company, Rice has collaborated individually with
Alan Menken and
Elton John, creating productions including
Aladdin (winning an
Academy Award for Best Original Song,
Golden Globe and
Grammy Award for Song of the Year for "
A Whole New World" in 1992, also Rice's only US number one single to date) and
The Lion King (winning an Academy Award and Golden Globe for "
Can You Feel the Love Tonight" in 1994). 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, which includes the UK number one single "
I Know Him So Well", sung by
Elaine Paige and
Barbara Dickson. He has collaborated with
Rick Wakeman on the albums
1984 and
Cost of Living. In 2009, Rice wrote the lyrics for
Andrei Konchalovsky's critically panned
reimagining of
The Nutcracker, set to the music of
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. 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. Rice has since, however, rejected working with Lloyd Webber again, claiming their partnership has run its course, and they are "no longer relevant as a team". In 2025, it was announced that Rice and Lloyd Webber will reunite to create the original songs for a new comedy play
Sherlock Holmes and The 12 Days of Christmas by
David Reed and
Humphrey Ker (from the British sketch comedy troupe
The Penny Dreadfuls) which will open in November for the Christmas season at the
Birmingham Repertory Theatre.
Media On 9 November 1979, 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 (as the lyricist of Jesus Christ Superstar'', Rice himself had been accused of blasphemy a decade before). To argue in favour of this accusation were veteran broadcaster and noted Christian
Malcolm Muggeridge and
Mervyn Stockwood (the
Bishop of Southwark). In defence of the film were two members of the
Monty Python team,
John Cleese and
Michael Palin. Rice has also been a frequent guest panellist for many years on the radio panel games
Just a Minute and
Trivia Test Match. He also made an appearance in the film
About a Boy. The film includes several clips from an 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's
One Hit Wonderland, where he co-wrote the song which gave Hawks a top twenty hit in Albania. On 2 December 2010 he addressed the eighth
Bradman Oration in
Adelaide. In October 2011 and November 2016 to February 2017, Rice was guest presenter for the
BBC Radio 2 show ''
Sounds of the '60s'', standing in for regular presenter
Brian Matthew who was unwell. Beginning in the lockdowns due to the
COVID-19 pandemic, in partnership with Broadway Podcast Network, Rice has presented
Get Onto My Cloud, a
podcast retrospective of his career. A number of episodes feature verbatim excerpts of his autobiography and all include various recordings of his and other associated musicians' work.
Literature 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 also 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. Rice was the president of the
London Library, the largest independent lending library in Europe from 2017 to 2022.
Publishing Along with his brother, Jo, and the 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. In September 1981, Rice, along with Colin Webb and
Michael Parkinson, launched
Pavilion Books, a publishing house with a publishing focus on music and the arts. He held it until 1997.
Patronage Rice is a patron of the London-based drama school,
Associated Studios and was for several years, a patron of Thame Players Theatre along with
Bruce Alexander.
Honours 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. He is a fellow member of the
British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. ==Personal life==