A biography for Cameron Mackintoshhasn’t been written yet.
“An old building is like a show. You smell the soul of a building. And the building tells you how to redo it.”
“Audiences aren't going to get rid of me. One thing I can say, with absolute certainty, is that my shows will still be performed when I'm dead, buried and forgotten. They're going to absolutely outlive me, which is a wonderful thing to think about.”
“I've spent more money on my theatres since I bought them than I did buying them.”
“Having a think about whether you can afford 'this' or 'that' is a good discipline to have, to maximise what you can achieve to the highest standard.”
“Darling, when you're as old as I am, you cherish the very few musicals that have come your way that you know are great classics. You become their guardian.”
“I think the worst thing that could have happened to me would have been having a hit at 20. I don't know what that would have done to me. But instead, I had to scrape a living for years. And my first show, which opened in 1969, lost over £45,000, an absolute fortune then.”
“What musicals need is a new me.”
“I never know what is going to have that 'X' factor and what isn't.”
“My own tastes happen to be in tune with what the public wants. I think that's the reason my batting average is so high, not because I've discovered some brilliant formula.”
“If there's too much of you around, people can get tired of you.”
“I'm a war baby: I was brought up with rationing, and my parents always had to struggle. I remember when I was sent to boarding school - Prior Park College in Bath - my father was asked how he was going to pay the fees, and he replied: 'In arrears.'”
“I am not driven.”
“I love architecture almost as much as I love my musicals.”
“The musical is the one area of the theater that can give you the biggest buzz of all.”
“Two of my theatres are 1930s and the other five are by Sprague, the greatest Edwardian architect of the lot. They've needed a lot of work doing to them but they were built very well.”
“I used to have to beg and borrow £25 to hire some French windows. I started producing in 1967, and I was in debt until 1981. Having a think about whether you can afford 'this' or 'that' is a good discipline to have, to maximise what you can achieve to the highest standard.”