Pure Imagination: The Songbook

About

Double Oscar and Grammy winner Leslie Bricusse is a writer-composer-lyricist who has contributed to many musical films andplays during his career. He was born in London and educated at University College School and Gonville and Caius CollegeCambridge. At Cambridge he was President of the Footlights Revue Club and founded the Musical Comedy Club. There he co-authored directed and performed in his first two musical shows Out of the Blue and Lady at the Wheel both of which made their way to London's West End. He also found time in the gaps to acquire a Master of Arts degree.The late great Beatrice Lillie plucked him out of the Footlights Revue at the Phoenix Theatre and made him her leading man in An Evening with Beatrice Lillie at the Globe Theatre where he spent the first year of his professional life writing another musical The Boy on the Corner and the screenplay and score of his first motion picture Charley Moon which won him his first Ivor Novello Award. That year he decided to drop the possibilities of directing and performing and concentrate his career on becoming a full-time writer-composer- lyricist.His subsequent stage musicals include Stop the World - I Want To Get Off The Roar of the Greasepaint - The Smell of the Crowd Pickwick Harvey The Good Old Bad Old Days Goodbye Mr Chips Henry's Wives Scrooge Sherlock Holmes Jekyll & Hyde Noah's Ark Sammy Cyrano de Bergerac Kennedy Sunday Dallas Victor/Victoria and It's a Dog's Life! He has written songs and/or screenplays for such films as Doctor Dolittle Scrooge Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Fac- toryGoodbye Mr Chips Superman fi Hats for Lisa Victor/Victoria Santa Claus - The Movie Home Alone I and II Hook Tom and Jerry - The Movie Goldfinger You Only Live Twice The Last Emperor various Pink Panthers The Great Music Chase Two for the Road The Sand Pebbles Sunday Lovers Babes in Toyland The Land Before Time Bachelor of Hearts and The Pied Piper of Hamelin.Bricusse has written more than forty musical shows and filmsand over the years has had the good fortune to enjoy fruitfulcollaborations with a wonderful array of musical talentsincluding Anthony Newley Henry Mancini John Williams JohnBarry Jerry Goldsmith Jule Styne Quincy Jones Andre Previn FrankWildhorn and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (whose Nutcracker Suite he adapted into a song score).Bricusse is one of very few people in the world of stage and screen musicals who contribute all three creative elements - book music and lyrics - to a show or film a feat he has achieved some twenty- five times. He has also written words and music (but not the book) or book and lyrics (but not the music) to a further dozen projects in his various collaborations.His better-known songs include 'What Kind of Fool Am I?' 'Once in a Lifetime' 'Gonna Build a Mountain' 'Who Can I Turn To?' 'The Joker' 'If I Ruled the World' 'My Kind of Girl' 'Talk to the Animals' 'You and I' 'Feeling Good' 'My Old Man's a Dustman' 'When I Look in Your Eyes' 'Goldfinger' 'Can You Read My Mind?' (the love theme from Superman) 'You Only Live Twice' 'Le Jazz Hot' 'On a Wonderful Day Like Today' 'Two for the Road' 'The Candy Man' 'This Is the Moment' 'Thank YouVery Much' 'Crazy World' 'Pure Imagination' and 'Oompa-Loompa- Doompa-Dee-Doo'.He has been nominated for ten Oscars nine Grammys and four Tonys and has won two Oscars a Grammy and eight Ivor Novello Awards the premier British Music Award. Hundreds of Bricusse's songs have been recorded by major artists including Frank Sinatra Nat King Cole Judy Garland Aretha Franklin Barbra Streisand Sammy Davis Jr (who recorded sixty Bricusse songs) Tony Bennett Shirley Bassey Tom Jones Petula Clark Julie Andrews Liza Minnelli Andy Williams Bobby Darin Rex Harrison Kate Smith Elaine Paige Anthony Newley Michael Feinstein Bette Midler The Moody Blues Nancy Sinatra Lena Horne Sergio Mendes Nina Simone Dionne Warwick Robert Goulet Matt Monro Ray Charles Ethel Merman Placido Domingo Jennifer Holliday Danny Kaye George Burns Robbie Williams Mariah Carey Linda Eder Diana Krall Maroon 5 Michael Buble The Black-Eyed Peas Muse and Jennifer Hudson.In 1989 he received the Kennedy Award for consistent excellence in British songwriting bestowed by the British Academy of Song- writers Composers and Authors and was inducted into the American Songwriters' Hall of Fame - only the fourth Englishman to be so honoured - after Noel Coward John Lennon and Paul McCartney.Jekyll & Hyde written with Frank Wildhorn ran for four years at the Plymouth Theatre in New York and has had many international productions around the world the most recent in Brazil Spain Germany the UK Russia Australia as well as Japan South Korea and other Far East territories.The stage version of Victor/Victoria written with Blake Edwards and Henry Mancini which successively starred Julie Andrews Liza Minnelli and Raquel Welch at the Marquis Theatre on Broadway has since been seen worldwide in many international productions.Bricusse's stage musical version of Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka opened at the Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts in Washington DC in November 2004 after a prestigious world premiere in the East Room of the White House attended by President George W. Bush Laura Bush and an invited audience. The show has since enjoyed thousands of productions across the United States.Another Bricusse perennial his musical version of Scrooge in which Anthony Newley starred at the Dominion Theatre in London's West End is also seen each year in many productions around the world. The title role has been played by Richard Chamberlain in the US Keith Michell in Australia Ichimura in Tokyo and currently stars Tommy Steele in his tenth season in the role in the United Kingdom including two at the London Palladium in 2005-6 and 2012-13. A new Japanese production opened in Tokyo in 2013-14. An animated film version is currently in production in the UK starring John Cleese as Scrooge.For Doctor Dolittle which played for four years in the UK starring Phillip Schofield and almost one hundred animatronic animals created by Jim Henson's Creature Shop Bricusse served as librettist composer lyricist and co-producer. A major US production followed in 2003 eventually starring Tommy Tune as Dolittle in 2006.Cyrano de Bergerac Bricusse's second collaboration with Frank Wildhorn opened triumphantly in Tokyo 2009 and again in 2012-13. Further productions are scheduled to open in Germany and South Korea in 2015-16.Sammy Bricusse's biographical musical about his friend Sammy Davis Jr broke every box office record when it opened at San Diego's Old Globe Theatre in 2009 and is now preparing both a West End production and a major motion picture.The Great Music Chase Bricusse's Nutcracker collaboration with Tchaikovsky with screenplay and lyrics by Bricusse is currently in production as an animated motion picture in the US and Canada.Other current projects include Pure Imagination Bricusse's songbook show containing sixty songs from sixty years of stage and screen songwriting as well as the most ambitious project of his career now completed a lyrical adaptation of the instrumental works of George Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue An American in Paris Cuban Overture and Concerto in F) entitled A Few Words with George. Bricusse plans to combine a world premiere concert in Sydney with an all-star recording of the work.