Lyrics The Greatest Star of All - Andrew Lloyd Webber , George Hearn

Once, you won't remember
If you said Hollywood, hers was the face you'd think of
Her face on every billboard
In just a single week, she'd get ten thousand letters
Men would offer fortunes for a bloom from her corsage
Or a few strands of her hair
Today, she's half-forgotten
But it's the pictures that got small
She is the greatest star of all

Then, you can't imagine
How fans would sacrifice themselves to touch her shadow
There was a maharajah
Who hanged himself with one of her discarded stockings
She's immortal
Caught inside that flickering light beam
Is a youth which cannot fade
Madame's a living legend
I've seen so many idols fall
She is the greatest star of all

When he'd gone, I stood looking out the window for a while
There was the ghost of a tennis court with faded markings and a sagging net
There was an empty pool where Clara Bow and Fatty Arbuckle must have swum 10,000 midnight ago
And then there was something else, the chimp's last rites
As if she were laying a child to rest
Was her life really as empty as that?