Biography of Willy Russell

Willy Russell was born in Liverpool in 1947. He became a hairdresser on leaving school, then undertook a variety of jobs, also writing songs which were performed in local folk clubs. He also wrote songs and sketches for local radio programmes. At 20 years of age, he returned to college and became a teacher in Toxteth, after which he began to become interested in writing drama. His first play, Keep your Eyes Down, was produced in 1971, and he became well-known after his musical about the Beatles, John, Paul, George, Ringo & and Bert, ran for eight weeks at Liverpool Everyman Theatre. It was transferred to the West End and won the Evening Standard and London Theatre Critic Award for best musical in 1974. Since then he has written several plays, including Educating Rita (1981), about a working-class woman who decides to study English with the Open University and Shirley Valentine (1988), a housewife who becomes transformed after a holiday in Greece. Both plays were made into films from Willy Russells own screenplays starring Julie Walters and Pauline Collins respectively, each winning an Oscar nomination, as did the author for best screenplay. He has also written plays for television, including the well-received Our Day Out (1984). Willy Russell has continued to write songs since the early 1960s. He wrote the lyrics and score for his popular musical Blood Brothers (1986), about a pair of twins separated at birth. The show has been playing in the West End since 1983 and won 3 Best Music Award and one Best Actress Award at the Laurence Olivier Awards. He also wrote the score for Shirley Valentine, and for several other television series and plays. His first album, Hoovering the Moon, was released in 2003. In 2000, Willy Russell published his first novel, The Wrong Boy. It is currently being adapted for television. He lives and works in Liverpool.