Jim Steinman began in theatre with Joseph Papp & the NY Shakespeare Festival. Papp had at intermission signed Jim during an “epic rock spectacle”, Dream Engine, which he wrote & starred in at Amherst College in 1969, and which caused a scandal and sensation. He moved into recording: he has sold over 190,000,000 records.
Writing all words & music by himself alone, two records of his, Bat Out Of Hell and Bat Out Of Hell 2 sold 44 million copies and 26 million copies, respectively, both sung by Meat Loaf. His #1 records include: “I’d Do Anthing For Love But I Wont Do That;” “Making Love Out Of Nothing At All;” “Total Eclipse Of The Heart;” “Paradise By The Dashboard Light;” “Bat Out Of Hell;” “Two Out Of Three Aint Bad” and “It’s All Coming Back To Me Now.” He received a BMI Award For Biggest Song Of Year for which he won a Grammy for producing Celine Dion’s “Falling Into You”, with others. Film work included Footloose, Streets Of Fire, and Shrek 2.
He moved back to theatre with Tanz Der Vampyr, done with director Roman Polanski, and since 1996, has been running in Europe every year since then, without any real pause. It has been officially declared “the most successful musical ever to emerge from Continental Europe,” and is still on in Berlin, Finland, St. Petersburg and Vienna, where it began.
He did only music for Tanz but did only lyrics for Whistle Down The Wind, with Andrew Lloyd Webber, which produced the “most successful single song ever to come from a musical,” #1 in 34 countries. Currently, Jim is writing book, music, & lyrics for Bat Out Of Hell: The Musical for imminent production, as well as Nutcracked, a “heavy metal” version of Nutcracker, writing lyrics to Tschaikovsky’s music, and working with a book by Terry Jones (Monty Python.) He continues to write, last finishing the song “You’ve Got To Love Me With The Sun In Your Eyes (Until The Day That You Go Blind)” and “(I Must Be Wearing) The Red Badge Of Love.”