Life and career
Holmes was born David Goldstein in England. where his father was serving in the U.S. military as a bandleader. His mother, Gwen, was English, and both were musical. The family moved, after a few years in Northwich, England to the northern Nanuet, New York, where Holmes later studied clarinet and composing at the Manhattan School of Music.
Songwriter and recording artist
Holmes played the piano for both The Cuff Links and The Buoys, with whom he had his first international hit, “Timothy” in 1971. He also wrote jingles and pop tunes for groups including the Platters, the Drifters, Wayne Newton, Dolly Parton, Barry Manilow and television’s The Partridge Family.
As a recording artist, Holmes broke through with 1974's Widescreen on Epic Records, which introduced him as a presenter of highly romantic, lushly orchestrated "story songs" that told a witty narrative punctuated by clever rhymes and a hint of comedy. Barbara Streisand discovered this album and asked to record songs from it, launching Holmes on a successful career. She then used some of his songs in the movie A Star Is Born. He also arranged, conducted and wrote songs on five of her other albums.
Playwright
Rupert Holmes made his professional debut as a playwright with the musical
The Mystery of Edwin Drood, later known as
Drood, in 1985. Holmes was encouraged to write a musical by Joseph Papp and his wife after they attended one of Holmes's cabarets in 1983. The result, loosely based on the Charles Dickens unfinished novel, and inspired by Holmes's memories of English pantomime shows he attended as a child, would earn Holmes many awards, including the Tony Award for both book and score, as well as the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Lyrics, Music and Outstanding Book of a Musical. Holmes also orchestrated
Drood himself, making him one of the few Broadway composers to write his own orchestrations. Because the original novel was left unfinished after Dickens' death, Holmes came up with the unusual idea of providing alternate endings for each character who is suspected of the murder, and letting the audience vote on a different murderer each night.
Holmes also wrote the Tony Award-nominated ("Best Play 2003")
Say Goodnight, Gracie, based on the relationship between George Burns and Gracie Allen. The play, which starred Frank Gorshin, was that Broadway season's longest running play. He has also written the comedy-thriller
Accomplice (1990), which was the second of Holmes's plays to receive an Edgar Award (following
Drood). Holmes has written a number of other shows, including
Solitary Confinement, which played on Broadway in 1992; Thumbs, the most successful play in the history of the Helen Hayes Theatre Company; and the musical
Marty (2002), starring John C. Reilly. Holmes also joined the creative team of
Curtains, after the deaths of both Peter Stone (the original book-writer) and Fred Ebb (the lyricist).
Holmes is writing the book of a musical theatre version of the film
The First Wives Club, which is scheduled to play at The Old Globe in San Diego from July 15, 2009 through August 23, 2009 — prior to a Broadway engagement.
Television writer and novelist
In 1996 Holmes created the TV series Remember WENN for American Movie Classics, writing all 56 episodes of that series. In 2003 he published his first novel, Where the Truth Lies followed in 2005 by Swing, a multimedia release combining a novel with a music CD providing clues to the mystery.