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His gifts as an entrepreneur are formidable. "Andrew is a brilliant natural exploiter of his own shows," says Mackintosh, who co-produced Cats, Song & Dance and Phantom. "It runs parallel with his creative talent. He understands showmanship: knowing how to launch a song, finding the right artist to promote it, doing the right programs and interviews. All of these things he does with consummate skill." Probably only Lloyd Webber could have written his Requiem as a memorial to his father and then turned the Pie Jesu into a hit song (sung by Brightman and a boy soprano) that climbed to No. 1 on the British charts. To some, that was marketing savvy; to others, tasteless calculation. "It was not in one's head that one could have a Top Ten hit from a piece in Latin," Lloyd Webber told a British interviewer. "But that doesn't mean I'm not delighted that it happened."
Beneath his deceptively placid public persona, Lloyd Webber seethes with artistic temperament. In private, some of his acquaintances grumble about his explosive temper, but few dare to confront him, presumably because of his power and influence. While his first wife was still married to him, she was quoted as saying, "He never relaxes. He likes to have something to fuss about. He is exhausting to be with."
Choreographer Gillian Lynne, who worked with him on both Cats and Phantom, says, "Andrew always has one night when he has a fit. He can become like a shark with anger. He is passionate. But that is so much better than people who settle, isn't it?" One such moment occurred during rehearsals for Starlight, when Lloyd Webber argued vehemently with Nunn over two bars of music the director had inserted in order to help the skaters negotiate a dangerous maneuver. Insisted Nunn: "You either have those bars, Andrew, or you'll have a few roller-skating deaths." "O.K.," Lloyd Webber shot back, "either we have deaths or I withdraw the score!" The composer prevailed (and the skaters survived).
"I must be the most intolerable person to know because I think about music all the time," says Lloyd Webber. His basic shyness and his air of indifference to most other subjects make him seem brusque and aloof. "Andrew is a very determined person, and he's very competitive," says his mother. "He has a one-track mind. He has a brisk manner and can be offhand. He has his difficult side -- he has a temper and terrific swings of mood."
When engaged in a musical discussion, Lloyd Webber fairly bursts with enthusiasm, sometimes speaking so fast he begins to trip over his tongue. He can sit at the piano for hours, discoursing on composers from Rodgers to Prokofiev. On more personal topics he is reticent. He is particularly uncomfortable about his personal fortune and tends to scale down the size of his wealth and possessions. In fact, he is sometimes criticized for being tight-fisted with his money. ("Andrew thought he was broke when he was down to his last (pounds)3 million," says one friend.)
His conversation, though, is an incomplete guide to the man; Lloyd Webber's essence lies in his music. "I don't think Andrew ever puts into words accurately what he thinks about anything," Rice has said. "Yet he puts into music precisely what he thinks about something. So you don't have to listen to what he says but what he writes, which is probably why he is a great composer."