There was a poem about Grizabella, which according to Valerie Eliot her husband had found too depressing for children. There was also a letter T.S. Eliot had written to his publisher that mentioned a gathering of “Jellicle Cats” that ended with a trip to the Heaviside Layer in a big air balloon. Lloyd Webber saw the makings of a stage musical in this.

‘Memory’ sounds like Puccini for a reason

Lloyd Webber, in wanting to write a musical about Puccini, once composed an imitative tune that he hoped could be a hit for the show. (It wouldn’t be Lloyd Webber’s last homage to Puccini; “The Music of the Night” bears a suspicious resemblance to “La Fanciulla del West.”) But nothing came of the Puccini project, so Lloyd Webber banked the song.

When the “Cats” team later found that the show lacked an emotional core, he dug it out and played them the song. Trevor Nunn, the musical’s director and future lyricist of “Memory,” is said to have told the room: “﻿I want you all to remember the date, time and place when you first heard this melody.”

Judi Dench should have been the star — of the original

This dame was one of the first stars found for the London premiere. Her Sally Bowles in “Cabaret” was a triumph around town, and she could lend the amorphous “Cats” some cachet as Grizabella. But she fell and injured herself while rehearsing “The Old Gumbie Cat.”

A rumor began to circulate that her accident was an excuse to escape a show that was showing signs of a pending catastrophe. She did eventually return to rehearsals, though on crutches and clearly not able to carry on. Now, though, she is in the new movie as a scene-stealing Old Deuteronomy.

Previews were disastrous

During the first preview in London, not even “Memory” landed. On the second night, Elaine Stritch is said to have walked out shouting “Cat-astrophe!” Lloyd Webber, who had taken out a second mortgage on his home and financed a substantial portion of the show personally, wrote in his memoir about wanting to just call the whole thing off.