Daily Mirror early 1990s - date, Author & Paper not 100% known
How Sarah Brightman handles life with the world's leading composer
Tell Sarah Brightman a Star is born and she laughs. Tell her a star is made and you’re speaking the same language. “No, I’m not a tough Cookie" she says reading your mind “But I have an Iron will. Discipline that’s what you need to succeed in this business. Discipline and confidence.
She has just shown she has both, posing easily for pictures with no hint that she hasn’t slept all night since flying to London from New York. We walk across Soho’s busy streets from the Palace Theatre, HQ of her husband Andrew Lloyd Webber’s empire. She is wearing blue jeans, suede boots. suede Jacket. There are crystals round her neck. A silver slave bracelet on her hand. She looks like an updated flower child. The Soho restaurant has opened it's top floor exclusively for her. It's Thai food. Hot stuff. Her eyes devour the menu but she settles only for noodles. "The voice has to be looked after" she say "I live on a fine balance"
She has just returned from a successful tour of America singing Andrew’s greatest hits. Next week she repeats those concerts at the London Palladium. We talk about nerves. She suffers from them. "I suppose it’s because my work means so much to me. I get sick before going-on stage."
She will not eat breakfast before next week’s concerts. For lunch she’ll have pasta. Then she’ll rehearse for a couple of hours before shutting herself In her dressing-room. "I’ll do some scales to freshen The Voice. But the rest Is silence,” she says.
Andrew once said that the two sleep apart before a big show. It helps to calm their nerves.
“That’s nobody’s business but ours.” She laughs, wary once more. “It was probably just one of his flip comments.”
She was due later that day to hop back to New York to continue. training The Voice for he Palladium. She has’ a coach “just like athletes have trainers”. “The Voice is something that grows. You need to have an outside ear to tell you what it’s doing,” she says. “Andrew? He knows nothing about coaching. He only knows whether it sounds right.”
He knew it was right for Phantom of the Opera, a show he created for her.’ She starred as Christine, a dancer who could sing, just as she can.
Sarah was in Pan’s People at 16. Then Hot Gossip. She had a hit record, I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper.
She met the world’s most successful composer. She became a full-throated soprano. And now she is emerging as an international star.
I suppose it’s because my work means so much to me. I get sick before going-on stage
“I started dancing at three. At 13, I discovered I’d never be a ballet star. It was a shock, a blow. So I switched to The Voice and luckily it came out right.”
She calls The Voice her “Siamese Twin”. “It’s a person or a child, if you like, that you nurture It’s a part of you, and yet it’s not a part because there are days when it decides to do its own thing.” I ask her if she’s a good mother to The Voice. Her eyes flash warily. Her publicist has already warned her not to talk about motherhood or babies. “Oh my God,” she says, “I thought you’d ask about that. I know Andrew and I have been married for six years I know I’m coming up to 30. But women can have children at 40, can’t they?”
She switches quickly to America and the gamble that paid off. They want her back. Australia and Japan want her too. She will go on a World tour. She says she’s not “gob smacked” by the success. She prefers to describe it in her own Home Counties way as being “jolly relieved”
Yesterday Michael Crawford signed up for a Hollywood version of ‘Phantom’. Sarah desperately wants to star in it. But it is early days, she says. She thinks back to the rows with American Equity, the Actors’ Union, Which tried to stop her, a Brit, appearing in the Opera on Broadway. “Was that plain nastiness?” I ask. “Well, do you think. she replies. “That’s your answer. She pauses when you ask which of Andrew’s songs is her favourite. “Probably Music Of The Night, which is sung by The Phantom. It was the first song Andrew wrote for me. It had very different lyrics but I won’t tell you what they are."
Sarah was raised in Berkhamsted, The eldest of six Children The youngest, a girl too, is 10. (Amelia aka Violet) Mother trained as a dancer. Father trained as an architect, but became a property developer. She sees mum often. But her father, she says, was the one from whom she wanted approval. “He didn’t understand the arts. He just wanted me to be a success.”
That success can be measured in many ways not least in the sumptuous homes she and Andrew have in London, Berkshire, France and New York. The 12-room £4 million Manhattan apartment in Trump Tower was sold to them by Donald himself.
The Trumps,
Donald and Ivana, are personal friends.
For the first time, Sarah falls into gossip. “There’s a New York phone line you can ring saying which of the two you support,” she says. “Oh. I’d probably vote for Ivana.” Then caution takes over again. “No. I’m joking. It’s all very sad. The pressure of publicity is making them do things they would not do otherwise". Come off it, Sarah, you say. These people breathe publicity.
‘‘OK,’’ she answers, ”Maybe he just doesn’t want to be where he is in the marriage. Maybe he’s no longer in love and she’s still in love with him.”
I ask her how she handles Andrew. She comes back with a line from one of his songs: “He’s just a man . . .".
It was once said that Andrew worships the people she walks on. “Me?” she asks, smiling sweetly. “That’s not my way. People I work with say I’m a perfectionist, like Andrew. I don’t know if that makes me difficult.”
So how do two perfectionists live together? How do they settle the simple things like, decorating their many homes? She laughs. We’re getting personal again. “Easy – we let somebody else do it. But everything come to us for a decision in the end.”
She and Andrew do not have a nuptial contract. She has her money and Andrew has his £130 million. “That’s what’s good about being English,” She says. “We keep some of our handshakes”.
She stands. Time’s up. Suddenly she sneezes and fear scurries across her face. “Gosh,” she says, “I hope I’m not going to catch a cold.”
