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[0:00] Tim Rice: Hello, this is Tim Rice.

[0:01] Tim Rice: Welcome to episode 47 of my podcast, Get On to My Cloud.

[0:17] Tim Rice: The original studio album of Jesus Christ Superstar, which Andrew Lloyd Webber and I wrote and produced in 1969 and 1970, was the work that launched our careers in several other areas: concert, stage, and film.

[0:31] Tim Rice: Everything happened rather quickly after the instant, almost global acceptance of the recording, particularly in America.

[0:39] Tim Rice: Within six months of the album's release, concert tours in arenas around America, both official and bootleg, were doing mighty business.

[0:48] Tim Rice: Less than a year after the album topped the U.S. charts, the theatrical version was running on Broadway, and just 18 months after that, the movie version was released.

[0:59] Tim Rice: The contribution that Andrew and I made to the Superstar movie was minimal.

[1:04] Tim Rice: In stark contrast to the ultimate fate of Evita, the film eventually directed by Alan Parker and starring Madonna, which appeared nearly 20 years after the stage show, the film of Superstar was set up at breakneck speed by our producer Robert Stigwood and MCA via MCA's Universal Pictures.

[1:25] Tim Rice: The director was to be Norman Jewison.

[1:27] Tim Rice: This was great news.

[1:29] Tim Rice: A, I'd heard of him. He was, of course, one of the most respected film directors in the world, but at that time, what I knew about international film directors was pretty flimsy.

[1:38] Tim Rice: B, he'd directed one of my all-time favorite films, In the Heat of the Night, starring Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger, to this day, still high in my lifetime top ten.

[1:49] Tim Rice: And C, he just completed work on an excellent musical film, Fiddler on the Roof.

[1:55] Tim Rice: Indeed, it was while he was shooting that picture in what was then Yugoslavia that our album's Pontius Pilate, Barry Dennen, who'd had a part in Fiddler, introduced Norman to the Superstar album, firing the distinguished Canadian's enthusiasm for our work, or at least for that work.

[2:15] Tim Rice: We met and liked Norman and his team, who were to be based in England at Pinewood Studios for the duration of the Superstar film production.

[2:23] Tim Rice: I was asked to write the first draft screenplay.

[2:27] Tim Rice: I set about this with great enthusiasm and minimum concern for budget, certain that a massive Ben-Hur kind of treatment was essential.

[2:36] Tim Rice: Tens of thousands of extras would soon be thanking me for a boost to their incomes.

[2:42] Tim Rice: After all, Superstar had not got where it had by excess subtlety or by its creators thinking small.

[2:49] Tim Rice: Obviously, all the words were already in place, so it was merely a question of my pointing out which vast and spectacular visual effect accompanied which song.

[3:00] Tim Rice: Should the procession of camels enter from the left or the right of the frame?

[3:05] Tim Rice: What was the best marching formation for the Roman legions?

[3:08] Tim Rice: These were the only kinds of problems I faced, so that within two weeks of being asked, I'd submitted my script.

[3:15] Tim Rice: Certain that I would not be required to do anything more, I sat back to await the invitation to Israel.

[3:21] Tim Rice: The filming was to take place where the actual original events had, rather than in Pinewood, to see my brilliant and expensive ideas transferred to celluloid.

[3:32] Tim Rice: I was right in that I was not required to do anything more.

[3:36] Tim Rice: Norman and Robert rejected my screenplay outright and signed Melvin Bragg to write another with a cast of dozens rather than thousands.

[3:44] Tim Rice: I was fast learning how feebly writers vibrated on the film world's Richter scale.

[3:51] Tim Rice: I was not even asked to have a rethink.

[3:53] Tim Rice: Melvin was signed without my knowledge or consent, and he too, unencumbered by actually having to think up any plot or lyrics, delivered his screenplay in next to no time.

[4:04] Tim Rice: I suppose I was fairly miffed about this at the time, but Melvin's a delightful fellow and a terrific writer, who actually appeared to like Superstar.

[4:14] Tim Rice: Consequently, it was difficult for me to be too upset.

[4:17] Tim Rice: Even if I had been, I could not have been half as annoyed as Andrew was by the refusal of anyone to trust him with the orchestrations for the movie.

[4:26] Tim Rice: As his orchestrations on the original recording had been so good and such an essential feature of the work's success, the decision to hand over his baton to André Previn struck us as bordering on the insane.

[4:41] Tim Rice: We had at least heard of him, and I'd quite liked one or two of his 60s jazz albums.

[4:46] Tim Rice: But as he made no effort to hide his basic loathing of the score, he went into print some years later, referring to it as a piece of shit, making one wonder how he could have so debased himself to accept the job.

[5:00] Tim Rice: We were unable to register much enthusiasm for his appointment.

[5:04] Tim Rice: Previn had even less to do than Melvin, as he merely rehashed Andrew's original arrangements, for which he was ludicrously nominated for an Oscar.

[5:14] Tim Rice: Mercifully, he didn't win.

[5:16] Tim Rice: In his day, he wrote the tunes for a couple of musicals, Coco and The Good Companions.

[5:21] Tim Rice: But despite working with two of the greatest lyricists of all time, Alan J. Lerner and Johnny Mercer, respectively, neither show made a lasting impact.

[5:32] Tim Rice: Could the music have been to blame?

[5:34] Tim Rice: I cannot possibly comment.

[5:36] Tim Rice: With Melvin and André in position, Andrew and I took a total back seat.

[5:41] Tim Rice: Despite, or because of this, the production roared ahead without us.

[5:46] Tim Rice: The cast were 100% American, I'm not quite sure why, and they were soon out in Israel filming.

[5:52] Tim Rice: Robert and Universal Pictures naturally ran into a bit of opposition via their choice of location, but the eventual approval of the Israeli government was a big plus for the film's credibility and PR.

[6:06] Tim Rice: David Land, our irrepressible manager, see Get Onto My Cloud episode 42.

[6:12] Tim Rice: David, Andrew, and I flew out to Israel.

[6:15] Tim Rice: This was in November 1972 to have a look at things, and we continued to exert no influence whatsoever on proceedings, spending most of our time sightseeing in Jerusalem, Jericho, and the Dead Sea.

[6:28] Tim Rice: We teamed up there with the hip writer Nick Cohn, who was on an assignment on behalf of Playboy magazine to write an article on JC Superstar being filmed in Israel.

[6:40] Tim Rice: I was a great fan of Nick, who'd written one of the first intelligent histories of pop music, a wildly witty tome entitled Wap Wappa Loopa Loppa Lopp Bamboo.

[6:50] Tim Rice: We got on really well.

[6:51] Tim Rice: Friends for life, for at least a week or two.

[6:54] Tim Rice: Two months later, we read his highly sarcastic and fairly abusive piece about Superstar that he delivered to the famous socially desperate magazine.

[7:03] Tim Rice: Incidentally, Nick hit the jackpot a few years later when Robert Stigwood, no less, turned a slender article of his about New York kids' Saturday Nights Out into the basis of Saturday Night Fever.

[7:14] Tim Rice: Good luck to him.

[7:16] Tim Rice: Carl Anderson and Ted Neeley played Judas and Jesus in the movie.

[7:21] Tim Rice: They'd both sung the roles on Broadway, and I was particularly pleased that Carl, unlucky to be passed over as the first Judas on stage anywhere in the world, was signed by Norman Jewison for the film.

[7:33] Tim Rice: Here are Carl and Teddy singing part of the Last Supper from the movie soundtrack.

[7:39] Tim Rice: Their characters nearly coming to blows in between the ever more woozy and liquor-filled choruses of the apostles, who are drunkenly unaware of the final argument between their leader and his betrayer.

[8:55] ♪ Musical number: "The Last Supper" — performed by Carl Anderson and Ted Neeley ♪

[12:18] Tim Rice: You have managed better if you'd had a plan.

[12:39] Tim Rice: Two great voices, Carl Anderson as Judas, Ted Neeley as Jesus. My principal memories of our visits to the filming were hilarious trips in a beat-up van around Israel with David Land in top form, regaling us with his wartime experiences. I was the first man away at Dunkirk, and less than politically correct views about the then political situation, often delivered astride a camel. Yvonne Ellerman, Mary Magdalene, and Barry Denon, Pontius Pilate, were the only performers on the original album who were chosen for the film. Yvonne and her husband, Bill Oakes, one of Robert Stigwood's right-hand men, joined us for my 28th birthday celebrations at a tavern in Jericho. But all in all, we felt surplus to requirements, felt that the shooting was progressing okay, and returned home after just a few days.

Feeling it was perhaps about time, we dedicated ourselves and energy to a new project. The film was eventually released with reasonable fanfare in the summer of 1973, barely a year after the debut of the West End stage show, which had been a bona fide smash, unlike the Broadway version. The film was neither a huge success nor a complete flop. The basic concept that presumably had been Norman's and or Melvin's idea was that a bunch of wandering hippie actors arriving in the actual places where Christ had lived and died, decided to do the show right then and there. So the action was really set in the 1970s, with Israeli warplanes and tanks occasionally intruding. Some critics considered the net result a little confused, and the 1970s hippie fashions were probably past their peak almost before the movie's release.

Despite some beautifully photographed sequences and several fine performances, for the first time in its meteoric streak across the showbiz heavens, Superstar seemed a little out of touch and out of fashion. In some ways it was. In 1973, it had completed its supernova burst into prominence and would henceforth become an establishment musical, maintaining reasonable popularity, but never again a work with the power to shock or provoke. That at least is what we felt in the mid-70s, and we were pretty happy with that. However, we never remotely thought that half a century later it would still be going strong and would still appeal to successive new generations, even causing controversy here and there.

Fifty plus years later, it's been exciting and gratifying when top actors and singers, not even born when we were out in the Israeli desert, continue to investigate and perform Superstar, such as the John Legend led company in New York at Easter 2019. To return to Carl Anderson and Ted Neeley. They eventually played more than 1,700 American concerts of Superstar together in what began as a 20th anniversary of the movie tour, planned to last three months. It lasted five years. Teddy, at the age of 77, is still performing the role of Jesus in Superstar, albeit at the time of this recording, productions have been temporarily halted by COVID. His extraordinary voice has barely altered at all. He still hits staggeringly high notes in Gethsemane with apparent ease, and in recent years, I witnessed him literally stop the show in Italy halfway through that aria on more than one occasion.

He's become totally dedicated to the role, which he now plays primarily in Europe, and his personal following there is loyal and strong. I would not be at all surprised if he's still singing the role when he enters his ninth decade. I hope so. I'll be there. Even though he's now twice the age of many, not all of his fellow performers, he looks ageless on stage with amazing energy. It's long been a pleasure to see him both on stage and off. He's had time over the years for several other projects and performances, but to my amazed delight, he sees Superstar as his number one priority. Sad to say, the world can no longer see Carl Anderson. This terrific performer died in February 2004. In addition to his film and many theatrical performances as Judas in Superstar, he was a leading recording artist, contributing vocals to such classic albums as Stevie Wonder's Songs in the Key of Life, as well as releasing many solo albums in the soul, jazz, and pop fields.

He appeared in several movies, including Spielberg's The Color Purple, several top-rated TV shows, and hit the pop charts in a big way in 1986, when his duet with Gloria Loring reached number two in the Billboard Hot 100. I had the honour of saying a few words about him during his memorial service in Los Angeles, which was an extraordinary combination of celebration and sadness, attended by hundreds of friends and admirers, including Stevie Wonder. Carl was an outstanding talent, and we were very fortunate to benefit from his gifts and from his encouragement when we did. Here is that major hit record, Friends and Lovers, Carl Anderson and Gloria Loring.

[18:22] ♪ Musical number: "Friends and Lovers" — performed by Carl Anderson and Gloria Loring ♪

[21:31] Tim Rice: I last saw the movie of JCS around two years ago when it was featured in a season of musical movies at the National Film Theatre. And I must say I thought it held up pretty well. The 1970s look is now so far in the past, although some of my nearest and dearest claim I've never quite shaken it off. That look is now so far in the past, it's safely fascinating rather than embarrassingly out of date. And Carl and Teddy shine through as strong as ever. Perhaps we should not have rushed into making the film so speedily after our initial breakthrough. But I suppose we thought, and the producer certainly did, that we should strike while the iron was hot. We all assumed the iron would cool. To end, here's another Carl Teddy clash from the film soundtrack.

[22:22] ♪ Musical number ♪