By reading Tim Rice’s autobiography, “Oh, What a Circus,” I hoped to find out more about why he and Andrew Lloyd Webber stopped writing musicals together after “Evita” reached the stage in 1978.

I did not get a real answer to that question. The only “answer” was Rice writing “after Evita, things changed,” in reference to his relationship with Lloyd Webber and the business aspect of musical theater. 

I did find answers to other questions I had and a lot more than I expected about the lyricist of “Jesus Christ Superstar” from his book subtitled “The Autobiography 1944-1978.” Some current research about the possibility of a reunion—at least in my mind—surfaced when I discovered that Rice is credited with writing “additional lyrics” to Lloyd Webber’s latest musical, “The Wizard of Oz,” which is now playing in Toronto.

As a kid, Rice adopted his father’s passion for newspapers, describing himself as a “newspaper-holic.” He loved the cartoons and weather forecast: “I believe to this day a paper that gets those areas right is bound to hook the reader for the rest,” and “anything with a map appealed.” He also includes his first four lines of clever lyrics about the end of wartime rationing of candy, written in 1953. He skipped grades because of his intelligence and learned a lot about math from his mother. He went to school in France and learned French, spent some time in Japan and also studied Latin. All of this makes interesting sense later in the book. 

He started writing lyrical songs without the intention of writing musicals: “I wanted to be a pop star, for all the healthy reasons – women, money and fame.” That changed when he met Lloyd Webber.

In 1965, Rice was 20 when he wrote a letter to 17-year-old Lloyd Webber that started their collaboration with “The Likes of Us,” a musical that went nowhere. (A recording was made in 2005 and production released to amateur theater companies.) Several chapters describe their struggles of trying to get “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” from idea, writing the music and lyrics, to performance and the big time while Rice worked at EMI Records, hoping to make connections while considering a law career. The book, although always enjoyable, went into overdrive after their success with the “Jesus Christ Superstar” single, “Superstar,” written before the rest of the mega-musical music and lyrics, something I did not know. Before that, they had written other unsuccessful singles, and Rice wrote with a few other songwriters, too. 

He mentions their flop, too: the 1975 musical, “Jeeves.” Rice came up with the idea of Lloyd Webber writing the music and then bowed out. Lloyd Webber found another lyricist for the show that lasted only 38 performances. (It achieved a revival with major surgery in 1996 and ran for some time in London and New York City with the title “By Jeeves.”) Rice decided to write lyrics to “Evita” instead, after listening to a radio broadcast about the Argentinean’s life. The 1996 film, featuring Madonna, lead to another single, “You Must Love Me,” written by Rice and Lloyd Webber. It won a 1997 Academy Award for Original Song and me hoping the collaboration would be the catalyst for another full-blown, hopefully rock, musical. 

Other tidbits describe the people Rice met along the way and notable aspects of his life. These include his brief encounter with the Beatles during their recording of “A Day in the Life” from Sgt. Peppers and that he is a pack rat, even keeping ratings of every movie he has ever seen on index cards.

All of the above made the autobiography a story of how a great became great. The book lends to many “Oh, I never thought of that” moments and made me think about what I have done, not done and might consider doing. 

I would have liked to know more about the band he sang with, The Aardvarks, the name chosen because the two A’s assured the first alphabetically ordered place on marquees; “Cricket,” the short, 25-minute, commissioned musical Rice and Lloyd Webber wrote for Queen Elizabeth’s 60th birthday in 1986; and what he has done since 1978, including “Aida,” “Aladdin,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Chess,” “The Lion King” and other music. He did not say much about “Come Back Richard Your Country Needs You”  – written after ‘Joseph’ and before ‘Superstar’ – which never made it to a full stage production.

But as Rice writes, “(a) The book is already long enough and (b) there is always part two to make amends.” Maybe he is right; a 424-page autobiography may be adequate for someone’s first 44 years. Additional pages include most of the singles he wrote, some with Lloyd Webber, some with other writers, and some solo songs in which he wrote the music to his lyrics. 

An Internet search for a second volume indicates one may have been written but is unavailable. His web site does not list one. If anyone knows of one and where I could get a copy, let me know.

I do not know whether to rate “Oh, What a Circus” as an “A+ autobiography,” a “must read,” or another high ranking. I do know that you are going to enjoy it if you do read it.