Lionel Bart
| Lionel Bart | |
|---|---|
Bart in 1973, by Allan Warren
|
|
| Born |
Lionel Begleiter 1 August 1930 Stepney, London, England |
| Died | 3 April 1999 (aged 68) Hammersmith, London, England |
| Occupation | Composer |
| Years active | 1952–1999 |
| Relatives | Harry Bergliter (nephew) Frances Bergliter (niece) Rita Bergliter (niece) Samuel Bergliter (nephew) Ella Bergliter (great niece) |
Lionel Bart (1 August 1930 – 3 April 1999) was a writer and composer of British pop music and musicals, best known for creating the book, music and lyrics for Oliver!.
He was born Lionel Begleiter, the youngest of seven surviving children of Galician Jews, Yetta (née Darumstundler) and Morris Begleiter, a master tailor. He grew up in Stepney; his father worked in the area as a tailor in a garden shed. The family had escaped the deadly pogroms against Jews by Ukrainian cossacks in Galicia, which was then part of the Austrian Empire. The sole survivor of the seven children is Bart's sister Renee Gold.
Lionel Begleiter changed his surname to Bart, said to be derived from when he passed by St. Bartholomew's Hospital on the top deck of a bus, after he had completed his National Service with the Royal Air Force. A more likely derivation of Bart is from the silk-screen printing company he founded with John Gorman, G and B Arts.
As a young man he was an accomplished painter. When Bart was aged six, a teacher told his parents that he was a musical genius. His parents gave him an old violin, but he did not apply himself and the lessons stopped.
At the age of 14 he obtained a Junior Art Scholarship to Saint Martin's School of Art. One Friday afternoon he was suspended for "mischievousness" along with another student, John Groom, for making a noise with the rest of the class, involving set squares and other paraphernalia. On the following Monday, he returned to the School with a long explanation of his peripheral involvement in the disturbance, and was reinstated. After St Martin's he gave up his ambition to be a painter, and took jobs in silk-screen printing works and commercial art studios. He never learned to read or write musical notation; this did not stop him from becoming a significant personality in the development of British rock and pop music.
He started his songwriting career in amateur theatre, first at The International Youth Centre in 1952 where he and a friend wrote a revue together called IYC Revue 52. The following year the pair auditioned for a production of the Leonard Irwin play The Wages of Eve at London's Unity Theatre. Shortly afterward Bart began composing songs for Unity Theatre productions, contributing material (including the title song) to its 1953 revue Turn It Up, and songs for its 1953 pantomime, an agitprop version of Cinderella. While at the Unity he was talent-spotted by Joan Littlewood, and so joined Theatre Workshop. He also wrote comedy songs for the Sunday lunchtime BBC radio programme The Billy Cotton Band Show.
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