Word: smashingly
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Lloyd Webber's pioneering smash hit Jesus Christ Superstar wedded the manic energy of rock 'n' roll to the musical theater, and appeared on our cover in 1971. Associate Editor Michael Walsh, who wrote this week's profile, met Lloyd Webber in 1984 and has seen him frequently since. "A lot of people say that he's very cold and brusque," notes Walsh, "but I've never known that side of him. He's extremely enthusiastic when talking about musical things." That passion bubbled over at one point during Walsh's interviews for this story. "Lloyd Webber sat down...
...this one: shy middle-class British kid grows up listening to Mozart and Richard Rodgers, teams with buddy to write school musical, is discovered by slumming music critic, goes on to pen smash biblical epic Jesus Christ Superstar and monster hit Evita, splits with pal, has megatriumphs with Cats and Starlight Express, then comes up with extra-hot spook, The Phantom of the Opera. Along the way swaps bell-bottoms for swank Belgravia flat, 1,350-acre English country estate, choice property on the French Riviera, $6 million apartment in Manhattan, private jet, beautiful second wife and a worldwide musical...
...latest rebel siege began about six weeks ago, forcing Kabul to airlift up to 50 tons of food a night before rebel antiaircraft fire halted the flights. To smash the blockade, Soviet and Afghan troops launched a major assault on Dec. 19. Sources said the attackers quickly punched through the Sataw Kandaw Pass on the twisting Gardez-Khost road. But the rebels soon dug in. With 6,000 to 10,000 guerrillas deployed along the road, the insurgents claimed to have halted the drive before it could pick up speed...
...first homosexual experience. After that, Wilde's imagination caught fire. He wrote essays (The Decay of Lying, The Soul of Man Under Socialism) and reviews that kept him constantly before the public eye. Lady Windermere's Fan, the first of his plays to be performed in London, was a smash. His novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, scandalized critics and became the anthem of the decadent fin-de-siecle 1890s. This book was, as Ellmann notes, a "tragedy of aestheticism," a cautionary tale about the perils of unbridled hedonism. But the prose was so alluring that few noticed the message...
...uncaged onstage Williams contains multitudes -- a Sybil's worth of funny, fractured personalities. The man who was Mork, on TV's sitcom smash of the late '70s, can switch in nanoo-seconds from an infant's helium singsong to Elmer Fudd as Bwooce Spwingsteen. This glossolaliac gift can give the listener a high and a headache; it is that quick, sharp and scary. Scares Williams too. "When it works," says the Chicago-born comic, 36, "it's like . . . freedom! Suddenly these things are coming out of you. You're in control, but you're not. The characters are coming through...