Sandy Wilson was born in Sale, Cheshire, and educated at Harrow and Oxford. His career in the theatre began with contributions to Hermione Gingold's revue Slings and Arrows and Laurie Lister's Oranges and Lemons. In 1953 he wrote the celebrated pastiche The Boy Friend, for the Players' Theatre, which went on to become a hit in London, at Wyndham's (running for five years), on Broadway, and all over the world. Since then it has been revived, highly successfully, in the West End: at the Comedy in 1967 and in 1984 at the Albery. His subsequent stage musicals include: The Buccaneer (1955), Valmouth (1958), Divorce Me, Darling (1964), His Monkey Wife (1971), The Clapham Wonder (1978) and Alladin (1979). For television he wrote the music for The World of Wooster and Danny la Rue's Charley's Aunt. He also performs in a one-man show, Sandy Wilson Thanks The Ladies. In 1975 he published an autobiography, I Could Be Happy. and Ivor, an appreciation of the career of Ivor Novello.