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Sir Tim's Amazing technicolor lovelife there's the mistress who had his child, the star whose heart he broke, the lawyer lover and the mural painter. Oh, and the wife he's never divorced. IS Tim Rice's secret?

The Daily Mail (London, England); 12/13/2003

Byline: KATHRYN KNIGHT

WITH the drinks party - an elegant gathering in a London City wine bar - in full swing, the arrival of the lyricist Sir Tim Rice had gone relatively unnoticed. After being greeted enthusiastically by a striking blonde, he mingled easily with the assorted businessmen and women, chatting over the red wine and canapes.

Only towards the end of the revelries was Sir Tim's behaviour rather more worthy of comment: in full view of the guests, he embarked on a prolonged and fulsome embrace with the blonde that, in the words of one onlooker, was 'as passionate as it was public'. Not, you might think, quite the behaviour you'd expect from a 58-year-old Oscar-winning knight of the realm, particularly as, at the time, Sir Tim was known to be stepping out with someone else - a petite 39-year-old public relations consultant by the name of Gina Rozner.

But that's not the least of it, for his domestic arrangements are themselves even more colourful. In fact, Sir Tim is still married to his wife of 29 years, Lady (Jane) Rice, and is a frequent visitor to the grand estate in the Highlands he owns but she now shares with another man.

And in this year's Who's Who, his 'partner' is listed as Nell Sully, a 34-year-old artist with whom he has a five-year-old daughter.

Confused? It doesn't end there.

For into this already complex love life appear more rumoured inamorata, such as a national newspaper journalist, and a lady friend in the Highlands with whom Sir Tim, according to excitable local gossip, has 'an arrangement'.

This, of course, is not to mention the presence of a glamorous ex-mistress, singer Elaine Paige, with whom Rice memorably conducted an 11-year affair.

Indeed, despite approaching 60, it seems the romantic life of the genial writer, broadcaster and lyricist continues to be as vibrant and varied as the Technicolor Dreamcoat of one of his most famous creations.

As one friend puts it: 'He enjoys women's company, but he also enjoys the bachelor lifestyle. The fact is, he does it on his own terms because he can, and women either accept that or they don't.' Over the years, many women have chosen not to accept it: indeed, only this week the Daily Mail's diarist Richard Kay revealed that Ms Rozner had ended her yearlong relationship with Sir Tim, apparently despairing of ever securing a commitment from him.

While emphasising that relations are still cordial - 'We're still good friends and I don't want to muck that up by talking about it' - she nonetheless is quick to point out Sir Tim's problems with commitment.

'He is a multimillionaire who would want to see me, say, once or twice a week. And that would be that. But I was looking for something else,' she said. 'I wanted a rather more permanent and long-term relationship - and a more meaningful one.' CLEARLY, this reluctance to commit on a long-term basis has not stood in the way of Sir Tim's romantic opportunities. Nor has his marriage, which has long been considered unconventional even by showbiz standards.

He met Jane McIntosh, a Scottish army colonel's daughter, in London in the Seventies when she was working for a radio station and he was in the early stages of his writing partnership with Andrew Lloyd Webber.

They wed in 1974 and had two children, Eva, now 28, and 27-year-old Donald, and, indeed, all still enjoy time together as a family on Dundonnell, the 33,000-acre Highland estate Sir Tim bought for [pounds sterling]2 million in 1998.

It was Jane who proudly accompanied Sir Tim to Buckingham Palace in November 1994 for his much-anticipated knighthood for services to theatre. And it is Jane who resides permanently at Dundonnell and oversees the estate's three-storey mansion and 34 miles of rugged coastline.

But behind the apparent domestic harmony, all is not as it seems. Lady Rice filed for divorce in 1990, after years of watching Sir Tim publicly ricochet between the marital home and that of Elaine Paige, the blonde star of the Lloyd Webber and Rice musical Evita.

She was granted a decree nisi the same year and yet, in the 13 intervening years, the divorce has never been finalised.

It is an odd state of affairs, especially as Lady Rice has a new partner, a shooting manager called Stephen Potter. The couple met when Jane was staying at the Rice holiday home at Helston, on the Lizard peninsula in Cornwall, where Mr Potter has a harbourside house.

They live together at Dundonnell with the full knowledge of Sir Tim - although notably, when he comes to visit, Stephen, in the words of one bemused local villager, 'bales out'.

'It's rather funny, because Sir Tim still visits the estate, and it's well known among the community that Stephen makes himself scarce at these times.'

Nor is this state of domestic affairs the only source of rumour.

Local gossip would have it that Sir Tim has other reasons for visiting Scotland, aside from his continued affection for his wife and the estate.

He is rumoured to have struck up a close friendship with a woman in the nearby town of Nairn, a friendship he pursues whenever he visits his Highland 'It's very low key. Everyone's amused by it rather than shocked,' says a source. 'Both the Rices are held in great affection here, and both seem perfectly happy with the way things are.' It is indeed an arrangement that seems to suit both Sir Tim and Lady Rice - and according to friends, it is far from mere lethargy that has prevented Sir Tim from pushing through the paperwork on his divorce.

HE AND his wife have an extemely amicable relationship which leaves them free to pursue their own interests,' says one.

'More to the point, the lack of a decree absolute means he doesn't have to worry about having to make a permanent commitment to anybody else.' One who must be all too aware of this is Nell Sully - an artist who bears a striking resemblance to Elaine Paige. Sully met Sir Tim in 1994 when she was commissioned to paint murals at his mansion on the riverside in Barnes, south-west London.

In the words of one friend, she 'never quite left', and, in 1998, gave birth to a daughter with Sir Tim. At the time, showbusiness circles were rife with speculation that this would finally prompt a decree absolute, allowing Sully to become the second Mrs Rice - an assumption she, too, may also have been forgiven for making.

But after years of sharing his home and despite her Who's Who status as 'partner', Ms Sully lives several miles away with their daughter in a Richmond townhouse bought by Sir Tim.

'It's convenient for him,' explains a friend. 'He adores his young daughter but couldn't cope with the "highchair in the kitchen" scenario.

He values his privacy and likes shutting the door on everyone at night.'

As Ms Sully has never commented publicly on her relationship, quite what she makes of the arrangement is not on record.

However, the two are said to be on amicable terms.

Indeed, it is a testament to his charm that Sir Tim maintains such equilibrium with his many lady friends. Certainly, women of all ages seem to find him tremendously attractive, as one female admirer testifies.

'Tim's very charming,' she says.

'He is a great conversationalist and he has a kind of easygoing charm which is seductive. He is also rather scholarly, which is compelling. He likes the good things in life, but he's educated and sensitive.' Among other high-profile ladies to have enjoyed these attributes is Karen Phillipps, a 38-year-old lawyer perhaps best known as the escort of the late barrister Sir George Carman.

The pair became friends after meeting at a number of parties and for several months the friendship became a relationship, with Ms Phillipps presiding over a number of dinner parties at Sir Tim's riverside mansion. Again, the pair have remained friends.

Latterly - quite aside from the very public encounter with the blonde businesswoman just a few weeks ago - society circles have been atwitter with rumours that Sir Tim has been spending evenings in the company of a female national newspaper journalist.

What, then, of Ms Rozner, until recently yet another romantic presence in the life of Sir Tim? A journalist, as well as a book publicist, she met Rice early last year after interviewing him for a newspaper article. Romance did not blossom, however, until the autumn, when they encountered each other again at a book awards dinner.

Soon, Sir Tim was a frequent visitor to her home in Willesden, North London.

But while it seems Ms Rozner was keen to cement things further, that was something Sir Tim did not exactly encourage.

'In the end, it became clear that Sir Tim wanted the relationship to be conducted on his own terms and she decided she didn't want to be another Elaine Paige.' And what, indeed, of the now 55-year-old Ms Paige? Sir Tim fell in love with the diminutive blonde singer after casting her as the lead in Evita in the early Eighties.

THEIR affair was as high profile as it was passionate, but apparently unable to choose between wife and mistress, Sir Tim flitted between them, until a heartbroken Ms Paige, despairing of ever securing any lasting commitment, ended the relationship in 1991. She has never married since and lives alone in a London penthouse.

The two are now on remarkably civilised terms, speaking from time to time on the telephone, sharing the occasional lunch and chatting amicably when their paths cross at showbusiness parties.

Nonetheless, it is clear that the truncated love affair has left its mark on the singer, who recently confided wistfully in a friend that had she met Sir Tim these days, things may have been different.

'She told me she wonders what would have happened if they were having the affair nowadays, now that there is no stigma to having a love child,' says the friend.

It is a topic Sir Tim does not like to be drawn on, although on the few occasions he has commented publicly his words were tinged with, if not remorse, then certainly regret.

In one interview, asked if he thought he had behaved badly towards Ms Paige, he replied: 'I don't think I behaved badly, I think I behaved wrongly.' This regret seems to impinge on his feelings towards his wife, too, a woman he described in his 1999 autobiography as 'the most beautiful woman I had ever met'.

Cry for Tim Rice - he's single again.

The Daily Mail (London, England); 12/9/2003

Byline: RICHARD KAY

SOMEONE, somewhere could write a musical about it. Urbane, Oscarwinning lyricist Sir Tim Rice keeps letting beautiful women slip through his fingers.

For the past year, Sir Tim, 59, has been romancing foxy PR and journalist Gina Rozner, who is 20 years his junior.

But, sadly, the songwriter - whose oeuvre includes Don't Cry For Me Argentina - has now had the piano lid slammed down firmly on his fingers.

'I dumped him in no uncertain terms,' Gina tells me at her home in North London.

'It was simply a case that we each had totally different agendas.

'He is a multimillionaire who would want to see me, say, once or twice a week.

And that would be that. But I was looking for something else. I wanted a rather more permanent and long-term relationship - and a more meaningful one.' Devastatingly, she adds: 'I have to say that Tim is a very, very nice man. He is charming, absolutely delightful to be with. We haven't parted on bad terms.

But we wanted different things in life.' Sir Tim - who has won three Academy Awards, for Evita, Aladdin and The Lion King - first met Gina when she interviewed him for an article she was writing for a newspaper.

She met him again last autumn - at the Literary Review's Bad Sex Awards and they started making beautiful music together.

But the break-up is all too familiar. Dithering Tim could never make up his mind about singer Elaine Paige with whom he had a 12-year dalliance, and has obstinately remained married to his wife of 28 years, Jane, despite obtaining a divorce decree nisi, which he never made absolute.

He has a son and daughter by Jane, and another daughter, Zoe, five, by a lover, blonde artist Nell Sully, who he lists in Who's Who as a 'partner'.

Nell, 33, met him when she did interior design work on his house in Barnes, and lived with him for around three years.

And what of Karen Phillipps, 46, the former companion of the late libel lawyer George Carman, who was reportedly presiding at dinner parties at Tim's home?

Says Gina: 'She was never his girlfriend. . .'

Tunes are child's play Tim Rice was the inspiration behind the musicals he wrote with Andrew Lloyd Webber, but has since been eclipsed by him. The lyricist, who this week chairs the Whitbread book awa

The Sunday Telegraph; 1/21/2001; Helena de Bertodano

The Sunday Telegraph

01-21-2001

Byline: Helena de Bertodano

Section: Review; Features

With only two days to go until the winner of the Whitbread Prize is decided, Sir Tim Rice is frantically trying to finish reading eight books - the finalists in each category and four children's books. "I'm chairman of the judges so if I'm out of my depth, I'll just say `Let's move on. . .' "

When we met last week, he was more than half-way through the reading and planned to finish the rest over the weekend. He has no idea why he was appointed chairman. "It was a call out of the blue. I thought it was a joke," he says. "But I've enjoyed it. It's made me read a lot of fiction."

We meet in the book-lined study of his large home in Barnes, West London, overlooking the Thames. Rice, 56, is dressed in jeans, chunky jumper and suede shoes and sits in front of a roaring fire opposite a piano. To judge by the score on the piano, he has recently been playing Bob Dylan's The times they are a-changin'.

Times have changed dramatically for Rice, both professionally and personally, in the past 30 years. He was only 23 when he became famous with Andrew Lloyd Webber for Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. After two more successes - Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita - he and Lloyd Webber parted ways amid some acrimony and Rice fell into relative oblivion until he teamed up with Elton John in the Nineties for The Lion King, Aida and The Road to El Dorado. "The work with Disney was what brought me back from the dead," he acknowledges.

A few years ago he parted from his first wife Jane, with whom he has two children, Eva, 25, and Donald, 23. Jane put up with his 11- year affair with Elaine Paige, star of Evita, while Rice ricocheted between the two of them, unable to decide with whom his future lay. Eventually both women left him and he now lives with Nell Sully, a painter who is some 25 years his junior and with whom he has a two- year-old daughter, Zoe.

"What are you doing, Daddy?" asks Zoe, who is sitting in a high chair eating her tea in the kitchen. "I'm just going to talk to this lady," he replies and adds, feigning a sigh, "one more person to nag me any moment, one more person who wants to know where I am."

He is still on very amicable terms with his wife who, after their separation, wrote a letter to The Daily Telegraph, objecting to a reference to "Lloyd Webber's Evita".

"It categorically is not an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical," she wrote. "It was Tim Rice's idea in the first place; all the initial research in 1974 was done by him, and every word of the show was written by him." The letter touches on a sore point in the life of Tim Rice. For while both men may have played an equal part in the success of their musicals, it is unarguably Lloyd Webber who has become more associated with them. "I object when people say Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita, but it's not Andrew's fault. It's only because, as a personality, particularly in America, he became much more famous, and also people tend to remember the music. After all, you call them musicals."

He feels the lyricist deserves at least equal credit. "No composer would agree with me but the actual physical task of writing lyrics takes longer; it has to because if you write a tune for verse one, then you've got two, three, four, five and six, but if you write a lyric you can't have all the verses the same. I'm not saying therefore my contribution is more important; it's not, but all the composers I've worked with are very quick. I'm sure they've spent hours and hours pottering around but the act of writing a tune is more inspirational. Writing lyrics is like doing a crossword. I'm not saying it's always mundane: people will say `That's why his lyrics are so boring'. The skill of writing lyrics, which very few of us ever achieve, is in making it sound effortless, which is difficult."

Warming to his theme, he points out that musicians usually discover their skills at a very young age. "You would have thought that if lyrics and music were as difficult as each other, or had to have the same resources, then there would be one or two geniuses of seven who'd written The times they are a-changin', or something." Writing music, I think he is saying, is child's play.

Rice acknowledges that if it wasn't for meeting Lloyd Webber, he would never have got where he is today. But then again, he says, nor perhaps would Lloyd Webber. "The ideas Andrew was pursuing when I met him were all wrong. He was writing the wrong sort of show. The first show I worked on with him wasn't a particularly good idea [Lloyd Webber's idea of a musical on Dr Barnardo's life] and didn't get anywhere, and when we did Joseph [Rice's idea], which was wacky and slightly more in the Michael Flanders territory, his career took off. It's probably true to say that, to begin with, the lyrics of Joseph attracted more attention than the music."

In those days the two friends shared the limelight. "Until Andrew and I split we were equally known. We were like one person."

So why did Lloyd Webber become better known

subsequently? "Because he went on to have two huge successes - Cats and Phantom - and so many people in the press, with great respect, are so bone idle they just stick Lloyd Webber's name on everything and it kind of snowballs."

The two men still meet up but Rice says they are unlikely to work together again. "We'd probably never top it and if we came back and wrote something that was awful then I think it would devalue the other ones; people would say `We knew they were never any good'. . . Andrew often asks me to do something, which is great, but then I discover he's asked nine other people as well."

Is there a sense of competition between them? "I'm sure there is," says Rice. Friendly competition? "I'm not sure there's any such thing as friendly competition." Does he monitor what Andrew is doing? "Oh sure, but I don't lose sleep over it. I still haven't seen Starlight Express. . . and I haven't seen Cats all the way through."

They did not fall out over any one event, but a combination of difficulties after Evita - not least the fact that they had run out of good ideas - led to their parting. Then Andrew hit on Cats. "He did ask me to do Memory but other people were asked as well and in the end my version got elbowed." Did he mind? "Yes I did." They also had a row over the ownership of Joseph: Lloyd Webber bought the rights without consulting Rice.

I ask if he now feels a frisson of schadenfreude when a Lloyd Webber musical does not do well. "Yes," he says immediately. "I'm a normal human being with normal human failings. In the musical theatre business schadenfreude is rampant: people go berserk with glee at somebody else's disaster. As Don Black [also a lyricist] said when I saw him at some musical: `It's even worse than I had hoped.' It wasn't one of Andrew's," he adds hastily.

Rice currently has three musicals on Broadway - Beauty and the Beast, Aida and The Lion King - as well as The Lion King in London. But he has had his share of flops and says he can sense they haven't hit the spot when people avoid him at the first-night party. "I don't blame them. If I'm at the first night of a terrible show it's difficult to think of something to say apart from one of those wonderfully vague

cliches like `You've done it again'."

Rice says he finds Elton John easier to work with than Lloyd Webber. "Elton hardly ever questions a lyric. . . He's been nothing to me but charming, polite, friendly and funny."

He admits, however, that his differences with Lloyd Webber worked well creatively. "He's much more explosive and much more volatile than I am. I'm quite laid back and perhaps not so obsessive, which I think is good, but if we were both like me nothing would ever happen and if we were both like Andrew nothing would ever happen because we'd be fighting all the time."

Rice is far more reticent about his complicated personal life, only saying obliquely: "I am

definitely the sort of person to regret things." As for Elaine Paige, he says: "I have seen her off and on but I really don't want to go into that."

Delighted to be a father again, he says his two older children have been "very good" about the new addition to their family. "A few people say `What a nice granddaughter'," he chortles.

In Who's Who he cites his interests as cricket, history of popular music and chickens. Chickens? "I've always liked looking at birds," he says, "those of the feathered kind, and chickens are easy to keep."

Rice is chairman of his local Conservative Party, but says he does not support the party financially apart from contributing to events like their annual ball. "Maybe I'm just mean but I feel that if I start giving away vast sums of money, I would rather give it to something I felt was more definite."

He may not be as rich as Lloyd Webber but he has made a fortune in musicals and his annual income from royalties is estimated at more than pounds 2.5 million, a figure which he does not confirm or deny. He has houses in Scotland and Cornwall, as well as London. "You have to make money to know it doesn't make you happy. Or unhappy. I think what makes you happy or unhappy is inside you, more than readies."

For a man who has made his living out of musicals, it is surprising to hear that he does not even like them much."I'm not a fan of musicals," he announces matter-of-factly. "In general I'd rather see a film."