Robert Stigwood
Encyclopedia
Robert Stigwood is an impresario
and entertainment entrepreneur who relocated to England in 1954. In the 1960s and 1970s he was one of the most successful figures in the entertainment world, through his management of music groups like Cream
and The Bee Gees, theatrical productions like Hair
and Jesus Christ Superstar
and film productions including the hugely successful Saturday Night Fever
.
Stigwood bravely climbed fifty feet down a rope ladder into the hold of a tanker to administer morphine to a seaman who had fallen through a hatch. In Turkey he spent several months living with the family of a young friend in a hut in a small village and working with them in the fields.
Not long after that, he met businessman Stephen Komlosy. They became friends and decided to go into business together, setting up a small theatrical agency and building up a roster of actors. Among their clients was an aspiring young actor and singer called John Leyton
, who went on to star in The Great Escape
and Von Ryan's Express
. It was Leyton's unexpected success as a recording artist that made both Stigwood and his erstwhile associate Joe Meek
into Britain's first independent record producers.
Before the advent of mavericks such as Stigwood and Meek, the British pop music industry was highly stratified. Managers managed artists' careers and little else, agents only booked artists into venues, publishers only published music and sold songs to artists and recording companies, and recording companies recorded, manufactured, sold and promoted the products. It was rare for a manager to also be involved in publishing or agency work and it was almost unheard of for managers, agents or publishers to be directly involved in record production.
This pecking order was typified in the late Fifties and early Sixties by the three dominant figures of British pop: publisher and manager Larry Parnes
(one of the first people to combine publishing with artist management), composer Lionel Bart
and the managing director of EMI, Sir Joseph Lockwood. Typically, Parnes would discover new talent – as he did with Tommy Steele
, Marty Wilde
and Billy Fury
– and then sign them to a management contract. Lionel Bart, already under contract to Parnes' publishing company, would write or co-write songs to be recorded and then Parnes would 'sell' the artist to Lockwood and EMI who would sign them to a recording contract, and then record, press and market the records.
But the brief partnership between Robert Stigwood and Joe Meek would change the face of the British recording industry. Robert George "Joe" Meek was a gifted recording engineer who had trained as an RAF radar technician and began his career working for established recording studios in London. By 1960 Meek had accumulated enough equipment to build a studio in his London flat and he began producing records for his own company, RGM Sound Ltd.
Meek is credited as the first producer in the UK who had the knowledge and ability to undertake every stage of the record production chain himself. He found the talent — usually young men with the right "look" and perhaps some musical talent to go with it. He found the songs — often writing them himself, usually with a little help from musicians such as Dave Adams
, Geoff Goddard
or Charles Blackwell (Meek himself was reportedly both tone-deaf and dyslexic, and didn't read or write a note of music). He recorded the songs with his small roster of artists at the cramped studio he had constructed in his Holloway Road flat, and then offered a completed tape product to an established record company to manufacture and distribute. He preferred it that way after a bad business decision had lost him a potential #1 hit with his production of Angela Jones by Michael Cox. He chose to release the disc on his own independent Triumph
label, but the small pressing plant he used had simply been unable to keep up with demand after Cox had sung the song on a top TV music show. The record made a respectable appearance in the Top Ten, but it proved that Meek needed the muscle of the major companies to get his records into the shops when it mattered.
John Leyton was taken on by Robert Stigwood when he was building up his new theatrical agency. Leyton's first major booking was a stint in the TV series Biggles, but better roles proved hard to find. Stigwood asked Leyton if he could also sing, and this led to a series of auditions with various recording companies; he was turned down by all of them until he met Joe Meek. Unlike the others, Meek, unfazed by Leyton's initial lack of singing experience, was impressed by the young actor's good looks.
Simon Napier-Bell's account confirms that it was Meek who gave Stigwood the idea of making records independently, then getting the record company to distribute for them in return for a percentage of the selling price. It was, as Napier-Bell observes, "the music business equivalent of the independent film production that had changed the face of Hollywood". Excited by the idea, Stigwood gave Meek one hundred pounds to make Leyton's first record, but when it was completed Meek was reluctant to hawk the tape to the record companies himself, so Stigwood took on the task.
Meek's first single with John Leyton, a cover of Ray Peterson's U.S. hit "Tell Laura I Love Her
", was cut in late 1960. It had originally been intended for release on Meek's Triumph label, but the label had by now folded and the recording was instead leased to the Top Rank
label, owned by the Rank film organisation. However, Leyton's single lost out to a rival British version by Ricky Valance
. A follow-up single, "Girl On The Floor Above" (October 1960) was ignored.
Although Leyton rapidly improved as singer, his chances of a pop career looked slim, but Stigwood's persistence paid off and in mid-1961 he scored a coup when he managed to get Leyton cast in the role of pop star Johnny St. Cyr ("sincere") in a new nationally-broadcast TV series, Harper's West One. Crucially, Stigwood was able to arrange for Leyton's character to perform a song on the show.
Meek's associate, songwriter Geoff Goddard
(whose only previous recorded composition was The Flee-Rekkers
' "Lone Rider") was hurriedly drafted in to write a song for Leyton to perform on the programme. The hastily-penned result was the now-classic "Johnny Remember Me
", an echo-drenched melodrama in the form of a lover's plea from beyond the grave. The song was featured three times during the course of Leyton's appearance in the series and record shops were soon deluged with orders.
Meek had leased the recording to the Top Rank label (now owned by EMI) and by the time of Leyton's final TV appearance the team had a monster hit on their hands. The single went to #1 and remained at the top of the British charts for fifteen weeks, as well as charting in Europe. It was this success that led Stigwood into record production and management. He became Leyton's personal manager as well as his agent and then began looking around for other people to join his roster.
"Johnny Remember Me" was the first of a string of British hit recordings from the Meek/Stigwood/Leyton team, and their success set a new pattern for the industry: according to Simon Napier-Bell, within a couple of years, over half the hits in the UK were independent productions. Leyton's next single, "Wild Wind" (September 1961) went to #2, and he scored seven more Top 50 hits over the next two years. But his later chart placings were erratic: his third single, "Son, This Is She", only made #14; and his fourth, a cover of Goddard's "Lone Rider", barely scraped into the chart at #40.
Leyton's next two singles "Lonely City" (April 1962, #14) and "Down The River Nile" (July 1962, #42) were the last to have any significant input from Joe Meek. Stigwood was evidently becoming dissatified with Meek's eccentric recording style and insisted that "Lonely City" be recorded at a commercial studio. According to Tony Kent (Meek's personal assistant at the time), the session took place at London's IBC studios; largely at Meek's suggestion, and at which Meek was present but with Stigwood assuming the rôle of dominant co-producer. By the time Leyton's seventh single was released Meek was out of the picture entirely and all subsequent John Leyton recordings credit Stigwood as sole producer. From this point Stigwood recorded Leyton at EMI's Abbey Road Studios
, but while the audio quality improved, the crucial ingredient — the excitement of the 'Joe Meek sound' – was lost. Leyton's pop career petered out in late 1964, but by then his movie career had taken off.
In late 1961 Stigwood had made a record production deal with Sir Joseph Lockwood, managing director of EMI, who proved to be the crucial link between the record company and the budding entrepreneur, just as Lockwood had been in the Fifties for Larry Parnes, and just as he would be a couple of years later for Brian Epstein
and The Beatles
. From that time on, all John Leyton's singles were released on the HMV
label, distributed by EMI.
Other artists Stigwood signed to a management/recording deal included Mike Sarne
, whose Meek-produced "Come Outside" charted in 1962, and another Meek protegé, Mike Berry, who had scored a hit with the Geoff Goddard-penned "Tribute To Buddy Holly". Under Stigwood's guiding hand, Leyton, Sarne and Berry were still scoring hits but there was a major flaw in the EMI deal: the minuscule percentage that EMI was paying meant that Stigwood was barely able to make a profit from these recordings. Nevertheless, the system he pioneered changed the style and direction of the UK pop charts forever and his success with Leyton was instrumental in expanding his business, becoming simultaneously agent, manager and producer, a role he evidently relished.
Simon Napier-Bell: "He became fascinated by it. He loved its trickery and tease, and the apparent ease with which money could be made ... And what made Robert Stigwood different from his predecessors is that he expanded laterally. He didn't remain simply a manager or an agent. He moved into music publishing as well, and into pop concert promotion. But his real contribution to the British music scene was independent record production."
"He was in every way the first British music business tycoon, involved in every aspect of the music scene, and setting a precedent that was to become the blueprint of success for all future pop entrepreneurs."
Stigwood's other big innovation was in the songs that he selected. British acts had conventionally covered US hits after they had become successful there, but Stigwood began making regular trips to America to find new releases he thought had potential, and then rushing out UK covers by his acts before the originals hit the American charts.
He became extremely successful because of his control over all almost every facet of the business of his recording artists — agency, management, production, publishing and concert promotion. His business rapidly expanded and (according to Napier-Bell) Stigwood even bought one of the major music papers in a "fit of pique" when a Stigwood act failed to appear in their Top 30 chart.
The subject of Robert Stigwood's sexuality (he is understood to be gay) and its role in his career is one which has rarely been discussed. Whether or not it gave him an entree to the British showbiz scene is something probably only he can answer definitively, but it certainly would not have been a disadvantage, considering that so many other important figures in the music industry at that time — Sir Joseph Lockwood, Larry Parnes
, Brian Epstein, Lionel Bart
, Kit Lambert
, Simon Napier-Bell
, Joe Meek, Vicki Wickham
– were also gay.
Music writer Johnny Rogan
touched on this intriguing subject in his 1988 book about the British pop scene, Starmakers & Svengalis:
"... I researched the careers of several dozen British pop managers from the fifties to the present and was surprised to discover that a disproportionately high number of entrepreneurs from my sample groups fell into one of three categories: gay, Jewish and male. But what produced this unusual ethnic/sexual equation and why, in the case of homosexuals and Jews, was it valid predominantly from the early days of British pop until the late sixties? A broader observation of societal attitudes during those periods provided some important clues."
"Few would disagree that there has always been a gay tradition in such 'artistic' occupations as dancing, painting and writing. Even in repressive periods, homosexuals were accepted by the artistic community, though the nature of their sexuality was often masked by euphemisms such as 'eccentric' or 'aesthetic'. Historically, the gay movement has also been well represented in show business and other areas of entertainment. Since British pop music and traditional show business were inextricably linked, at least until the mid-sixties, the homosexual network during that period was particularly strong."
- Johnny Rogan, (1988), Starmakers & Svengalis: The History of British Pop Management, page 276.
Some Australian music writers have suggested that the main reason why so few Australian acts were able to break into the UK music scene in the Sixties was that they were locked out by the so-called "Pink Mafia" that supposedly dominated British showbiz. The truth of this claim can never be tested, but it is certainly notable that The Bee Gees—virtually the only act to emerge from Australia in that period who achieved major and lasting fame—owed much of their international success to the fact that they were managed by Stigwood who was, by the time he met them, an influential part of London's gay showbiz establishment.
Stigwood received criticism within the industry when he over-hyped and mis-managed his latest new pop hopeful, an Anglo-Indian singer called Simon Scott. His heavy-handed promotion included sending out plaster busts of Simon Scott as a promotional gimmick. However, although Simon Scott finally scored a hit, the venture cost Stigwood a great deal, and it was money that he could ill-afford to lose.
In January 1965 Stigwood promoted a package tour headlined by notoriously 'difficult' rock'n'roll legend Chuck Berry
(who famously always demanded payment in cash, up-front) supported by The Five Dimensions, Simon Scott. Winston G., The Graham Bond Organization
(with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker), Long John Baldry
, and The Moody Blues
with guitarist Mike Patto
as compère.
The tour was poorly attended and adding to his woes, support act The Moody Blues pulled out unexpectedly when the tour reached Manchester (their single Go Now had just gone to #1) and Stigwood had to negotiate with the band to get them back on the show.
Stigwood's finances ran out halfway through the Berry tour and he called in the receivers, owing some £40,000 to his creditors. EMI offered to bail him out, but he refused because he was anxious to get out of the unfavourable deal he had with the company. He fought valiantly to maintain the illusion that he had kept his personal wealth intact, although in reality he was flat broke. But, according to Simon Napier-Bell, Stigwood managed to fool enough people to keep his creditors at bay while he re-established himself. Within two years, he was back on top.
Stigwood's aggressive style and his drive to expand his management empire occasionally brought him into conflict with other entrepreneurs. Stigwood is the subject of one of the most famous stories in British showbiz, a fabled altercation between himself and one of the other big movers and shakers of the British pop scene, Don Arden
.
Sometime during 1966 one of Stigwood's staff made the mistake of discussing a possible change of management with of one of Arden's top acts, The Small Faces
. Not surprisingly, Arden took exception to this, and in spite of the fact that Stigwood had never met the group personally, Arden decided to pay him a visit with some of his minders, to teach him a lesson:
Don Arden: "I had to stop these overtures - and quickly. I contacted two well-muscled friends and hired two more equally huge toughs. And we went along to nail this impressario to his chair with fright. There was a large ornate ashtray on his desk. I picked it up and smashed it down with such force that the desk cracked - giving a good impression of a man wild with rage. My friends and I had carefully rehearsed our next move. I pretended to go berserk, lifted the impressario bodily from his chair, dragged him on to the balcony and held him so he was looking down to the pavement four floors below. I asked my friends if I should drop him or forgive him. In unison they shouted: ‘Drop him’. He went rigid with shock and I thought he might have a heart attack. Immediately, I dragged him back into the room and warned him never to interfere with my groups again."
's managers, Chris Stamp
and Kit Lambert
, although he reportedly became the butt of the pair's inveterate and often cruel practical joking.
He kept his Robert Stigwood Agency intact and worked to rebuild his career as a manager and independent producer. One of the first acts he managed during this period was Junco Partners, a blues band which succeeded The Animals
as the house band
at Newcastle
's Club A Go Go. The band recorded for Columbia Records
and Barclay Records
, with one of its first releases being co-produced by Stigwood and Vicki Wickham. The band included Charlie Harcourt, later of Lindisfarne
and Cat Mother and the All Night News Boys.
In 1966 Stigwood made an important connection when he paid £500 to Stamp and Lambert for the right to become The Who's booking agent. This gave him the opportunity, soon after, to lure the band away from Brunswick Records
and onto his own newly established Reaction Records
label, for whom they recorded the famous single "Substitute".
The recording was done on the sly, and was explicitly intended by the group as a means of breaking their five-year contract with producer Shel Talmy
, with whom they had fallen out (the single's original B-side, "Waltz For A Pig", was reputedly written about Talmy). Also in 1966 he became the manager of a new band comprising three of the best musicians from two groups that he had under contract—guitarist Eric Clapton
from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, and bassist Jack Bruce
and drummer Ginger Baker
from The Graham Bond Organisation
.
His connection to The Who enabled him to get his new group, Cream
, onto the bill for a 9-day stint at the RKO theater in New York in 1967. It was an important showcase for Cream and enabled Stigwood to introduce them to New York's music cognoscenti and helped break them in the USA. It was for this show that Stigwood commissioned the Dutch art collective called The Fool
to paint the striking psychedelic designs on Eric Clapton's Gibson SG guitar, Jack Bruce's Fender VI bass and Ginger Baker's drum kit.
However, during this period Stigwood had another pop flop when he tried to promote a singer called "Oscar". Oscar's real name was Paul Beuselinck; his stage name was taken from his father, Oscar Beuselinck, a music business lawyer whose clients included The Who. Oscar had been the pianist in Screaming Lord Sutch
's backing band, The Savages. Under the name 'Paul Dean' he released two singles in 1965-66. As 'Oscar' he cut four singles for Stigwood's Reaction label. The first, "Club of Lights" managed to scrape into the lower reaches of the Radio London Fab 40
chart. The second Oscar single was a version of a Pete Townshend song, "Join My Gang", which The Who never recorded. His third single, a novelty song called "Over The Wall We Go" (1967) is notable for being written and produced by a young David Bowie
, and it gained a degree of notoriety because of Bowie's tongue-in-cheek lyrics concerning escaped prisoners and incompetent cops, which satirised a rash of highly-publicised prison break-outs in the UK.
Once again, however, Stigwood overhyped Oscar, sending out a fake Academy-Awards-style statuette. 'Oscar' vanished from sight for some time, but Beuselinck re-emerged in the late Sixties under the name Paul Nicholas
. He maintained a connection with Stigwood, performing in the London productions of Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar and Grease, and he also featured in many films. He appeared in Stardust, starring David Essex
, and he played the sadistic Cousin Kevin in Stigwood's film version of The Who's Tommy (rock opera)
.
Stigwood moved his recording activities to Polydor Records
, where former EMI staffer Roland Rennie had recently been appointed as the new managing director. Stigwood had apparently been forewarned that Rennie was moving to Polydor, and this, according to Napier-Bell, was the major reason that Stigwood had been unwilling to accept EMI's rescue package.
Rennie had been a key figure in breaking The Beatles in America; he had been sent to New York by George Martin
and all EMI product was channeled through him for distribution by EMI's American partners. It was Rennie who struck the deal to license the first three Beatles records to the Swan and VeeJay labels, rather than to Capitol, who at first had no interest in the group.
Stigwood signed a much more advantageous deal with Polydor, with high percentages and substantial funding for his recording costs. This gave him the luxury of being able to take Cream to New York, where they cut their records with Atlantic Records
' famed house engineer Tom Dowd
and producer Felix Pappalardi
.
Why Epstein decided to merge with Stigwood is uncertain. There had been numerous other offers made for NEMS over the previous few years and Epstein is reported to have turned down more than one multi-million-dollar offer from American interests, so it is unlikely that he chose to become a partner with Stigwood simply for the money. They knew each other socially and through business, and Stigwood already had a reputation as a shrewd, tough operator, although it appears that Epstein was probably the only person in NEMS who was in favour of the merger.
According to author George Gunby, Epstein told The Beatles' publicist Alistair Taylor
that Stigwood had originally offered to buy NEMS, but the deal eventually became a merger, in which Stigwood would have to put all his company assets into NEMS; in return he would received a reciprocal shareholding in NEMS, plus a salary, an executive position as co-managing director, and access to all of NEMS now-considerable financial and other resources.
It was a godsend for Stigwood, and it effectively placed him at the pinnacle of the British pop industry in one easy step, but Epstein seems to have been about the only person in NEMS who was keen on the idea. Alastair Taylor is reported to have exclaimed "You must be joking!" when Epstein told him of the merger. Epstein was also considering handing over his role as manager of The Beatles, but when the Fab Four learned of this they were outraged. They evidently disliked Stigwood intensely. Interviewed in 2000 by Greil Marcus
, Paul McCartney recalled the group's angry reaction:
"We said, 'In fact, if you do, if you somehow manage to pull this off, we can promise you one thing. We will record God Save the Queen for every single record we make from now on and we'll sing it out of tune. That's a promise. So if this guy buys us, that's what he's buying.'"
Consequently, Epstein stayed on as manager of The Beatles but he handed responsibility for most of his other acts to Stigwood.
The NEMS' staff were also reportedly unhappy about the deal. The company had expanded rapidly growing from fifteen staff in 1964 to eighty in 1966. Epstein had taken over the Vic Lewis agency in 1965, (bringing in Donovan
, Petula Clark
and Matt Monro
) and Lewis became a NEMS director, but many staff members found Lewis' abrasive manner difficult to handle. According to Gunby: "...(they) could see the same problems arising, multiplied tenfold, when Stigwood moved in. His autocratic style would be a time bomb ticking beneath people who had stuck by Epstein through thick and thin."
Gunby says that Epstein told Derek Taylor that the merger with Stigwood would bring new talent into the fold and would strengthen the operation. Taylor remained unconvinced—Stigwood, he said, had "a ruthless reputation, a cavalier style that upset more people than it pleased." Epstein himself soon found himself at odds with his new partner—he was reportedly unhappy about Stigwood's spending, was upset by Stigwood renting a yacht for The Bee Gees, and was also angered by Stigwood's unilateral decision to send Alastair Taylor to America on a business trip, a plan Epstein overruled. It is claimed that Epstein subsequently decided that he didn't want Stigwood in the company.
When Barry Gibb appeared at Polydor's offices in London, Rennie immediately contacted Stigwood, who he thought would be ideal to sign the group to Polydor and manage them. Robert had just begun his eleven-month tenure with NEMS, and the boys' father Hugh Gibb had sent already an LP and acetates of their demo recordings to Stigwood in an effort to sign the group to NEMS. Stigwood signed the Bee Gees to a five-year deal in February and took their contract with him when he separated from NEMS in December.
Polydor released "Spicks and Specks", which had already been a major hit in Australia, but in spite of Stigwood paying for four week's exposure on pirate station Radio Caroline
, the single flopped. Stigwood was undeterred, and with NEMS' resources behind him, he embarked on a concerted campaign (no doubt at NEMS' expense) to break The Bee Gees in the UK, assiduously wining and dining TV producers and DJs; according to the MusicWeb Encyclopedia, he spent £50,000 promoting the group in 1967.
It paid off—within months their second single, New York Mining Disaster 1941
, had become a major UK hit and the follow-up, "Massachusetts", went top 5 in England and top 15 in the USA, the first in a string of Bee Gees hits through the late 1960s.
Stigwood's future with NEMS may have been uncertain, but it was decided in dramatic fashion by Brian Epstein's untimely death in August 1967. Brian's brother Clive took over as Managing Director and Stigwood left NEMS to form his own company, The Robert Stigwood Organisation (RSO), in December.
, Rod Stewart
, David Bowie
, Rick Davis (ex-Bay City Rollers
fame), and which managed and forged the careers of acts including The Bee Gees, Cream
, Blind Faith
, Eric Clapton
and Andy Gibb
. On his RSO Records
label Stigwood recorded artists including Clapton, Yvonne Elliman
, Paul Nicholas
, Player
and soundtrack albums for the motion pictures The Empire Strikes Back and Fame in addition to the films produced by his company RSO Films.
By 1968 Stigwood was enjoying huge success with his music ventures—Cream and The Bee Gees were now two of the biggest bands in the world—but he was in no mood to rest on his laurels. He moved into theatre production in 1968, and chose his first projects very wisely indeed.
RSO's transition "from rock management concern to multimedia entertainment empire" began after Stigwood saw the Broadway production of the pioneering rock musical, Hair
. He decided to stage it in London and it was a huge success, running for more than five years in the West End. He followed this with many highly successful productions: Oh! Calcutta!
, The Dirtiest Show in Town
, Pippin
, Sweeney Todd
, Sing a Rude Song, John, Paul, Ringo and Bert (Evening Standard Drama Award Best Musical for 1974) and the last of the Tim Rice / Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals, Evita. Both Superstar and Evita were successfully reproduced on Broadway, the latter picking up the Tony Award for Best Musical in 1980. More recently Stigwood produced stage versions of his two big film musicals, Grease
and Saturday Night Fever
.
In 1975, RSO teamed up with Bob Banner Associates to produce a stunt game show, Almost Anything Goes. The program, which aired on the ABC
Television Network in the United States, featured three teams of players from small towns in a competition where the emphasis was on good will. The show lasted four seasons.
Stigwood also purchased a controlling interest in Associated London Scripts, an independent writers' agency co-founded in the 1950s by Spike Milligan
and Eric Sykes
, which subsequently developed the hit series All in the Family
and Sanford and Son
in the USA, which were adapted from the popular British TV shows Til Death Us Do Part
and Steptoe and Son
. In 1973 Stigwood moved into film and produced Jesus Christ Superstar as a motion picture in association with its director, Norman Jewison
. He followed this with the acclaimed film version of The Who's Tommy
, which became one of 1975's most popular films and remains one of the few successful mergers of rock music and film drama.
RSO Films' next production became one of the biggest hits in the history of the business – the colossally successful Saturday Night Fever
. The 2-LP soundtrack album, written by and featuring The Bee Gees, made music history: it became the largest-selling soundtrack album ever released, and one of the biggest-selling albums in recording history, dramatically resurrecting The Bee Gees' career and making them international megastars. Remarkably, the songs were written 'to order' without the group having seen the film, and according to Frank Rose's 1977 Rolling Stone article about The Bee Gees, at least four of the songs — including "Stayin' Alive" – were written in just one week.
Stigwood followed this with another huge success, Grease
, which launched TV actor John Travolta
to super-stardom and became one of the most successful film musicals ever released.
Not all Stigwood's later films were successful, however. Moment by Moment
, which co-starred John Travolta and Lily Tomlin
, came out only a year after Saturday Night Fever, but it was panned by critics, bombed at the box-office and is generally credited with singlehandedly turning Travolta into 'box office poison'. Five years later Travolta again displayed his now-legendary inability to pick roles when he agreed to appear in Stigwood's ill-advised 1983 sequel to Saturday Night Fever, Staying Alive
, directed by Sylvester Stallone
. Although perhaps not as bad as Moment by Moment, the movie was not a success and did nothing to restore Travolta's career.
Soon after Grease, Stigwood made another infamous miscalculation with the musical film extravaganza Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
. On paper, the multi-million-dollar production looked like a surefire hit: it featured the songs of The Beatles, and starred two of the biggest rock acts of the day, Peter Frampton
and The Bee Gees, plus a long list of rock and film greats in cameo parts. Unfortunately, problems surfaced early and grew steadily worse. Stigwood sacked original director Chris Bearde
before shooting began; the Bee Gees quickly realised that things did not augur well and begged to be removed from the project, to no avail. Although the new director, Michael Schultz
(Car Wash) did a valiant job, the film turned out to be a disastrous flop; lampooned by audiences and critics alike, the unfortunate production is still cited as one of the worst musical films ever made. The film is also cited by some as the beginning of the end of the disco era.
Stigwood's also produced the rock-musical teen girl 'buddy' movie Times Square
(1980). Stigwood's autocratic streak surfaced again during the making of this film. Stigwood wanted to remove dialogue scenes to include more music, so that the soundtrack could be expanded to a double album, but director Allan Moyle
refused to make the cuts, so Stigwood fired Moyle (who didn't make another film for ten years) and made the cuts himself. Star Robin Johnson
later said of the result: "It was disappointing. It could've been so much more powerful. I'd love to see what Allan's cut would've been." Although not successful at the time, Times Square now has a strong cult following among gay women. The music soundtrack is also of considerable interest; it included many notable new wave acts – Patti Smith
, The Pretenders
, Talking Heads
and Roxy Music
– and it also became a collector's item for fans of English band XTC because their track "Take This Town", written especially for the film, appeared only on the soundtrack LP until the release of "Rag and Bone Buffet: Rare Cuts and Leftovers
" in 1990.
Other films produced by Stigwood include The Fan (1980), Grease 2
, Peter Weir
's Gallipoli, produced under the R&R Films banner, and the 1997 Golden Globe Awards best film winner, Evita
, starring Madonna
.
Robert Stigwood remains active, primarily in the theatrical musical industry. He recently sold his Barton Manor Estate on the Isle of Wight
, off the south coast of England.
Impresario
An impresario is a person who organizes and often finances concerts, plays or operas; analogous to a film producer in filmmaking, television production and an angel investor in business...
and entertainment entrepreneur who relocated to England in 1954. In the 1960s and 1970s he was one of the most successful figures in the entertainment world, through his management of music groups like Cream
Cream (band)
Cream were a 1960s British rock supergroup consisting of bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, guitarist/vocalist Eric Clapton, and drummer Ginger Baker...
and The Bee Gees, theatrical productions like Hair
Hair (musical)
Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni and music by Galt MacDermot. A product of the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, several of its songs became anthems of the anti-Vietnam War peace movement...
and Jesus Christ Superstar
Jesus Christ Superstar
Jesus Christ Superstar is a rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with lyrics by Tim Rice. The musical started off as a rock opera concept recording before its first staging on Broadway in 1971...
and film productions including the hugely successful Saturday Night Fever
Saturday Night Fever
Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 drama film directed by John Badham and starring: John Travolta as Tony Manero, an immature young man whose weekends are spent visiting a local Brooklyn discothèque; Karen Lynn Gorney as his dance partner and eventual friend; and Donna Pescow as Tony's former dance...
.
Early life
Robert Stigwood was born in Adelaide in 1934, the son of an electrical engineer. He began his career as a copywriter for a local advertising agency and then in 1955 moved to England. He had an eventful trip: in one incident recounted by Simon Napier-BellSimon Napier-Bell
Simon Napier-Bell has undertaken many jobs in the music industry, including bandboy, manager, producer, songwriter, journalist and author and gourmet...
Stigwood bravely climbed fifty feet down a rope ladder into the hold of a tanker to administer morphine to a seaman who had fallen through a hatch. In Turkey he spent several months living with the family of a young friend in a hut in a small village and working with them in the fields.
Early career in the UK
When he arrived in England, Stigwood found a job in an institution for "backward teenage boys" in East Anglia. He worked primarily on nightshifts, overseeing the dormitories and "preventing any flow of traffic after lights out". However he found it an "unsympathetic and frustrating job" and left. He worked briefly for Hector Ross at the New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth before Ross left and the theatre closed. During this time he met the young Paul Jones who would go on to front Manfred Mann in the early 1960's.Not long after that, he met businessman Stephen Komlosy. They became friends and decided to go into business together, setting up a small theatrical agency and building up a roster of actors. Among their clients was an aspiring young actor and singer called John Leyton
John Leyton
John Leyton is an English actor and singer. As a singer he is best known for his hit song, "Johnny Remember Me" , which reached Number 1 in the UK Singles Chart in August 1961.-Career:Leyton went to Highgate School and after completing his national service, he...
, who went on to star in The Great Escape
The Great Escape (film)
The Great Escape is a 1963 American film about an escape by Allied prisoners of war from a German POW camp during World War II, starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, and Richard Attenborough...
and Von Ryan's Express
Von Ryan's Express
Von Ryan's Express is a 1965 World War II adventure film starring Frank Sinatra and Trevor Howard, based on a novel by David Westheimer, and directed by Mark Robson.-Plot:...
. It was Leyton's unexpected success as a recording artist that made both Stigwood and his erstwhile associate Joe Meek
Joe Meek
Robert George "Joe" Meek was a pioneering English record producer and songwriter....
into Britain's first independent record producers.
Before the advent of mavericks such as Stigwood and Meek, the British pop music industry was highly stratified. Managers managed artists' careers and little else, agents only booked artists into venues, publishers only published music and sold songs to artists and recording companies, and recording companies recorded, manufactured, sold and promoted the products. It was rare for a manager to also be involved in publishing or agency work and it was almost unheard of for managers, agents or publishers to be directly involved in record production.
This pecking order was typified in the late Fifties and early Sixties by the three dominant figures of British pop: publisher and manager Larry Parnes
Larry Parnes
Laurence Maurice "Larry" Parnes was an English pop manager and impresario. He has been described as "the first major British rock manager... Parnes' stable encompassed most of the most successful pre-Beatles British rock singers."...
(one of the first people to combine publishing with artist management), composer Lionel Bart
Lionel Bart
Lionel Bart was a writer and composer of British pop music and musicals, best known for creating the book, music and lyrics for Oliver!-Early life:...
and the managing director of EMI, Sir Joseph Lockwood. Typically, Parnes would discover new talent – as he did with Tommy Steele
Tommy Steele
Tommy Steele OBE , is an English entertainer. Steele is widely regarded as Britain's first teen idol and rock and roll star.-Singer:...
, Marty Wilde
Marty Wilde
Marty Wilde is an English singer and songwriter. He was among the first generation of British pop stars to emulate American rock and roll, and is the father of pop singers Ricky Wilde, Kim Wilde and Roxanne Wilde.-Career:Wilde was performing under the name Reg Patterson at London's Condor Club in...
and Billy Fury
Billy Fury
Billy Fury, born Ronald William Wycherley , was an internationally successful English singer from the late-1950s to the mid-1960s, and remained an active songwriter until the 1980s. Rheumatic fever, which he first contracted as a child, damaged his heart and ultimately contributed to his death...
– and then sign them to a management contract. Lionel Bart, already under contract to Parnes' publishing company, would write or co-write songs to be recorded and then Parnes would 'sell' the artist to Lockwood and EMI who would sign them to a recording contract, and then record, press and market the records.
But the brief partnership between Robert Stigwood and Joe Meek would change the face of the British recording industry. Robert George "Joe" Meek was a gifted recording engineer who had trained as an RAF radar technician and began his career working for established recording studios in London. By 1960 Meek had accumulated enough equipment to build a studio in his London flat and he began producing records for his own company, RGM Sound Ltd.
Meek is credited as the first producer in the UK who had the knowledge and ability to undertake every stage of the record production chain himself. He found the talent — usually young men with the right "look" and perhaps some musical talent to go with it. He found the songs — often writing them himself, usually with a little help from musicians such as Dave Adams
Dave Adams
Dave Adams is a British singer, keyboard player and songwriter. He began working with Joe Meek in 1958, working with Meek until his death in 1967. In the early 1960s, he helped build up Meek's studio. He recorded singles with him under various pseudonyms and wrote songs for him...
, Geoff Goddard
Geoff Goddard
Geoff Goddard was an English songwriter. Working for Joe Meek in the early 1960s, he wrote songs for Heinz, Mike Berry, Gerry Temple, The Tornados, Kenny Hollywood, The Outlaws, Freddie Starr, Screaming Lord Sutch, Gunilla Thorne, The Ramblers, Carter-Lewis and the Southerners and John...
or Charles Blackwell (Meek himself was reportedly both tone-deaf and dyslexic, and didn't read or write a note of music). He recorded the songs with his small roster of artists at the cramped studio he had constructed in his Holloway Road flat, and then offered a completed tape product to an established record company to manufacture and distribute. He preferred it that way after a bad business decision had lost him a potential #1 hit with his production of Angela Jones by Michael Cox. He chose to release the disc on his own independent Triumph
Triumph Records (UK)
Triumph Records was a UK record label set up in January 1960 by Joe Meek and William Barrington-Coupe with the financial backing of Major Wilfred Alonzo Banks. The label existed for less than a year and although most of the artistes are unknown, many of the records now sell for high prices in the...
label, but the small pressing plant he used had simply been unable to keep up with demand after Cox had sung the song on a top TV music show. The record made a respectable appearance in the Top Ten, but it proved that Meek needed the muscle of the major companies to get his records into the shops when it mattered.
John Leyton was taken on by Robert Stigwood when he was building up his new theatrical agency. Leyton's first major booking was a stint in the TV series Biggles, but better roles proved hard to find. Stigwood asked Leyton if he could also sing, and this led to a series of auditions with various recording companies; he was turned down by all of them until he met Joe Meek. Unlike the others, Meek, unfazed by Leyton's initial lack of singing experience, was impressed by the young actor's good looks.
Simon Napier-Bell's account confirms that it was Meek who gave Stigwood the idea of making records independently, then getting the record company to distribute for them in return for a percentage of the selling price. It was, as Napier-Bell observes, "the music business equivalent of the independent film production that had changed the face of Hollywood". Excited by the idea, Stigwood gave Meek one hundred pounds to make Leyton's first record, but when it was completed Meek was reluctant to hawk the tape to the record companies himself, so Stigwood took on the task.
Meek's first single with John Leyton, a cover of Ray Peterson's U.S. hit "Tell Laura I Love Her
Tell Laura I Love Her
"Tell Laura I Love Her," a teenage tragedy song written by Jeff Barry and Ben Raleigh, was an American Top Ten popular music hit for singer Ray Peterson in 1960 on RCA Victor Records, reaching #7 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart...
", was cut in late 1960. It had originally been intended for release on Meek's Triumph label, but the label had by now folded and the recording was instead leased to the Top Rank
Top Rank
Top Rank may refer to:*Top Rank, Las Vegas based boxing promotion company formed in 1973* Top Rank Records, 1950s subsidiary record label of the Rank Organisation, British company which ran from 1937 to 1996...
label, owned by the Rank film organisation. However, Leyton's single lost out to a rival British version by Ricky Valance
Ricky Valance
Ricky Valance is a Welsh singer. He is best known for the number one single, "Tell Laura I Love Her", which sold over a million copies in 1960.-Life and career:...
. A follow-up single, "Girl On The Floor Above" (October 1960) was ignored.
Although Leyton rapidly improved as singer, his chances of a pop career looked slim, but Stigwood's persistence paid off and in mid-1961 he scored a coup when he managed to get Leyton cast in the role of pop star Johnny St. Cyr ("sincere") in a new nationally-broadcast TV series, Harper's West One. Crucially, Stigwood was able to arrange for Leyton's character to perform a song on the show.
Meek's associate, songwriter Geoff Goddard
Geoff Goddard
Geoff Goddard was an English songwriter. Working for Joe Meek in the early 1960s, he wrote songs for Heinz, Mike Berry, Gerry Temple, The Tornados, Kenny Hollywood, The Outlaws, Freddie Starr, Screaming Lord Sutch, Gunilla Thorne, The Ramblers, Carter-Lewis and the Southerners and John...
(whose only previous recorded composition was The Flee-Rekkers
The Flee-Rekkers
The Flee-Rekkers - also known as The Fabulous Flee-Rakkers - were a British instrumental rock and roll band in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The spelling of the group's name varied between records. They were fronted by tenor saxophonist Peter Fleerakkers , and their records were produced by...
' "Lone Rider") was hurriedly drafted in to write a song for Leyton to perform on the programme. The hastily-penned result was the now-classic "Johnny Remember Me
Johnny Remember Me
"Johnny Remember Me" is a song which became a 1961 UK #1 hit single for John Leyton, backed by The Outlaws. It was producer Joe Meek's first #1 production. Recounting the haunting - real or imagined - of a young man by his dead lover, the song is one of the most noted of the 'death ditties' that...
", an echo-drenched melodrama in the form of a lover's plea from beyond the grave. The song was featured three times during the course of Leyton's appearance in the series and record shops were soon deluged with orders.
Meek had leased the recording to the Top Rank label (now owned by EMI) and by the time of Leyton's final TV appearance the team had a monster hit on their hands. The single went to #1 and remained at the top of the British charts for fifteen weeks, as well as charting in Europe. It was this success that led Stigwood into record production and management. He became Leyton's personal manager as well as his agent and then began looking around for other people to join his roster.
"Johnny Remember Me" was the first of a string of British hit recordings from the Meek/Stigwood/Leyton team, and their success set a new pattern for the industry: according to Simon Napier-Bell, within a couple of years, over half the hits in the UK were independent productions. Leyton's next single, "Wild Wind" (September 1961) went to #2, and he scored seven more Top 50 hits over the next two years. But his later chart placings were erratic: his third single, "Son, This Is She", only made #14; and his fourth, a cover of Goddard's "Lone Rider", barely scraped into the chart at #40.
Leyton's next two singles "Lonely City" (April 1962, #14) and "Down The River Nile" (July 1962, #42) were the last to have any significant input from Joe Meek. Stigwood was evidently becoming dissatified with Meek's eccentric recording style and insisted that "Lonely City" be recorded at a commercial studio. According to Tony Kent (Meek's personal assistant at the time), the session took place at London's IBC studios; largely at Meek's suggestion, and at which Meek was present but with Stigwood assuming the rôle of dominant co-producer. By the time Leyton's seventh single was released Meek was out of the picture entirely and all subsequent John Leyton recordings credit Stigwood as sole producer. From this point Stigwood recorded Leyton at EMI's Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios
Abbey Road Studios is a recording studio located at 3 Abbey Road, St John's Wood, City of Westminster, London, England. It was established in November 1931 by the Gramophone Company, a predecessor of British music company EMI, its present owner...
, but while the audio quality improved, the crucial ingredient — the excitement of the 'Joe Meek sound' – was lost. Leyton's pop career petered out in late 1964, but by then his movie career had taken off.
In late 1961 Stigwood had made a record production deal with Sir Joseph Lockwood, managing director of EMI, who proved to be the crucial link between the record company and the budding entrepreneur, just as Lockwood had been in the Fifties for Larry Parnes, and just as he would be a couple of years later for Brian Epstein
Brian Epstein
Brian Samuel Epstein , was an English music entrepreneur, and is best known for being the manager of The Beatles up until his death. He also managed several other musical artists such as Gerry & the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas, Cilla Black, The Remo Four & The Cyrkle...
and The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
. From that time on, all John Leyton's singles were released on the HMV
HMV
His Master's Voice is a trademark in the music business, and for many years was the name of a large record label. The name was coined in 1899 as the title of a painting of the dog Nipper listening to a wind-up gramophone...
label, distributed by EMI.
Other artists Stigwood signed to a management/recording deal included Mike Sarne
Mike Sarne
Mike Sarne is a British actor, director and former pop singer.Sarne was born Michael Scheuer at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, London. Active in the 1960s as singer, he is best known for his 1962 UK comedy number one hit, "Come Outside"...
, whose Meek-produced "Come Outside" charted in 1962, and another Meek protegé, Mike Berry, who had scored a hit with the Geoff Goddard-penned "Tribute To Buddy Holly". Under Stigwood's guiding hand, Leyton, Sarne and Berry were still scoring hits but there was a major flaw in the EMI deal: the minuscule percentage that EMI was paying meant that Stigwood was barely able to make a profit from these recordings. Nevertheless, the system he pioneered changed the style and direction of the UK pop charts forever and his success with Leyton was instrumental in expanding his business, becoming simultaneously agent, manager and producer, a role he evidently relished.
Simon Napier-Bell: "He became fascinated by it. He loved its trickery and tease, and the apparent ease with which money could be made ... And what made Robert Stigwood different from his predecessors is that he expanded laterally. He didn't remain simply a manager or an agent. He moved into music publishing as well, and into pop concert promotion. But his real contribution to the British music scene was independent record production."
"He was in every way the first British music business tycoon, involved in every aspect of the music scene, and setting a precedent that was to become the blueprint of success for all future pop entrepreneurs."
Stigwood's other big innovation was in the songs that he selected. British acts had conventionally covered US hits after they had become successful there, but Stigwood began making regular trips to America to find new releases he thought had potential, and then rushing out UK covers by his acts before the originals hit the American charts.
He became extremely successful because of his control over all almost every facet of the business of his recording artists — agency, management, production, publishing and concert promotion. His business rapidly expanded and (according to Napier-Bell) Stigwood even bought one of the major music papers in a "fit of pique" when a Stigwood act failed to appear in their Top 30 chart.
The subject of Robert Stigwood's sexuality (he is understood to be gay) and its role in his career is one which has rarely been discussed. Whether or not it gave him an entree to the British showbiz scene is something probably only he can answer definitively, but it certainly would not have been a disadvantage, considering that so many other important figures in the music industry at that time — Sir Joseph Lockwood, Larry Parnes
Larry Parnes
Laurence Maurice "Larry" Parnes was an English pop manager and impresario. He has been described as "the first major British rock manager... Parnes' stable encompassed most of the most successful pre-Beatles British rock singers."...
, Brian Epstein, Lionel Bart
Lionel Bart
Lionel Bart was a writer and composer of British pop music and musicals, best known for creating the book, music and lyrics for Oliver!-Early life:...
, Kit Lambert
Kit Lambert
Christopher "Kit" Sebastian Lambert was a record producer and the manager for The Who.-Early life:Kit Lambert was the son of noted composer, Constant Lambert...
, Simon Napier-Bell
Simon Napier-Bell
Simon Napier-Bell has undertaken many jobs in the music industry, including bandboy, manager, producer, songwriter, journalist and author and gourmet...
, Joe Meek, Vicki Wickham
Vicki Wickham
Vicki Heather Wickham is an English talent manager, entertainment producer, and songwriter.-Career:She is most known for producing the 60s British television show Ready Steady Go!, and managing well known pop/soul acts Labelle and Dusty Springfield....
– were also gay.
Music writer Johnny Rogan
Johnny Rogan
Johnny Rogan is an author of Irish descent best known for his books about music and popular culture. He has written influential biographies of The Byrds, The Smiths and Van Morrison. His writing is characterised by "an almost neurotic attention to detail", epic length and a sometimes hostile...
touched on this intriguing subject in his 1988 book about the British pop scene, Starmakers & Svengalis:
"... I researched the careers of several dozen British pop managers from the fifties to the present and was surprised to discover that a disproportionately high number of entrepreneurs from my sample groups fell into one of three categories: gay, Jewish and male. But what produced this unusual ethnic/sexual equation and why, in the case of homosexuals and Jews, was it valid predominantly from the early days of British pop until the late sixties? A broader observation of societal attitudes during those periods provided some important clues."
"Few would disagree that there has always been a gay tradition in such 'artistic' occupations as dancing, painting and writing. Even in repressive periods, homosexuals were accepted by the artistic community, though the nature of their sexuality was often masked by euphemisms such as 'eccentric' or 'aesthetic'. Historically, the gay movement has also been well represented in show business and other areas of entertainment. Since British pop music and traditional show business were inextricably linked, at least until the mid-sixties, the homosexual network during that period was particularly strong."
- Johnny Rogan, (1988), Starmakers & Svengalis: The History of British Pop Management, page 276.
Some Australian music writers have suggested that the main reason why so few Australian acts were able to break into the UK music scene in the Sixties was that they were locked out by the so-called "Pink Mafia" that supposedly dominated British showbiz. The truth of this claim can never be tested, but it is certainly notable that The Bee Gees—virtually the only act to emerge from Australia in that period who achieved major and lasting fame—owed much of their international success to the fact that they were managed by Stigwood who was, by the time he met them, an influential part of London's gay showbiz establishment.
Career setback
For a few years Stigwood rode the crest of a wave of success, but according to Napier-Bell, he lived extravagantly and spent lavishly. The small percentages he received from his productions meant that he was largely dependent on agency and management commissions to maintain his cash flow, and gradually his company funds dwindled. Stigwood also promoted pop concerts "as a quick way to make a buck" and top up the books during slow periods. He specialised in summer seaside promotions, which were sometimes highly profitable, but were also notoriously risky since they often depended on the fickle English weather, among the many other hazards of the business.Stigwood received criticism within the industry when he over-hyped and mis-managed his latest new pop hopeful, an Anglo-Indian singer called Simon Scott. His heavy-handed promotion included sending out plaster busts of Simon Scott as a promotional gimmick. However, although Simon Scott finally scored a hit, the venture cost Stigwood a great deal, and it was money that he could ill-afford to lose.
In January 1965 Stigwood promoted a package tour headlined by notoriously 'difficult' rock'n'roll legend Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
(who famously always demanded payment in cash, up-front) supported by The Five Dimensions, Simon Scott. Winston G., The Graham Bond Organization
Graham Bond
Graham John Clifton Bond was an English musician, considered a founding father of the English rhythm and blues boom of the 1960s....
(with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker), Long John Baldry
Long John Baldry
John William "Long John" Baldry was an English and Canadian blues singer and a voice actor. He sang with many British musicians, with Rod Stewart and Elton John appearing in bands led by Baldry in the 1960s. He enjoyed pop success in the UK where Let the Heartaches Begin reached No...
, and The Moody Blues
The Moody Blues
The Moody Blues are an English rock band. Among their innovations was a fusion with classical music, most notably in their 1967 album Days of Future Passed....
with guitarist Mike Patto
Mike Patto
Mike Patto , is primarily notable as lead singer for Spooky Tooth and Boxer.-History:...
as compère.
The tour was poorly attended and adding to his woes, support act The Moody Blues pulled out unexpectedly when the tour reached Manchester (their single Go Now had just gone to #1) and Stigwood had to negotiate with the band to get them back on the show.
Stigwood's finances ran out halfway through the Berry tour and he called in the receivers, owing some £40,000 to his creditors. EMI offered to bail him out, but he refused because he was anxious to get out of the unfavourable deal he had with the company. He fought valiantly to maintain the illusion that he had kept his personal wealth intact, although in reality he was flat broke. But, according to Simon Napier-Bell, Stigwood managed to fool enough people to keep his creditors at bay while he re-established himself. Within two years, he was back on top.
Stigwood's aggressive style and his drive to expand his management empire occasionally brought him into conflict with other entrepreneurs. Stigwood is the subject of one of the most famous stories in British showbiz, a fabled altercation between himself and one of the other big movers and shakers of the British pop scene, Don Arden
Don Arden
Don Arden , born Harry Levy, was an English music manager, agent and businessman, best known for overseeing the careers of rock groups Small Faces, Electric Light Orchestra and Black Sabbath....
.
Sometime during 1966 one of Stigwood's staff made the mistake of discussing a possible change of management with of one of Arden's top acts, The Small Faces
The Small Faces
The Small Faces were an English rock and roll band from East London, heavily influenced by American rhythm and blues. The group was founded in 1965 by members Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones, and Jimmy Winston, although by 1966 Winston was replaced by Ian McLagan as the band's...
. Not surprisingly, Arden took exception to this, and in spite of the fact that Stigwood had never met the group personally, Arden decided to pay him a visit with some of his minders, to teach him a lesson:
Don Arden: "I had to stop these overtures - and quickly. I contacted two well-muscled friends and hired two more equally huge toughs. And we went along to nail this impressario to his chair with fright. There was a large ornate ashtray on his desk. I picked it up and smashed it down with such force that the desk cracked - giving a good impression of a man wild with rage. My friends and I had carefully rehearsed our next move. I pretended to go berserk, lifted the impressario bodily from his chair, dragged him on to the balcony and held him so he was looking down to the pavement four floors below. I asked my friends if I should drop him or forgive him. In unison they shouted: ‘Drop him’. He went rigid with shock and I thought he might have a heart attack. Immediately, I dragged him back into the room and warned him never to interfere with my groups again."
Rebuilding
After the disaster of the Berry tour, Stigwood took on David Shaw, an ex-City banker, as his partner, giving him access to previously unavailable funds and expertise, and he gained some extra cashflow by subletting his offices to The WhoThe Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
's managers, Chris Stamp
Chris Stamp
Christopher Stamp is a British psychodrama therapist based in the state of New York. Stamp is also known for co-founding the now defunct Track Records and for co-managing and producing such musical acts as The Who and Jimi Hendrix in the 1960s and '70s.-Childhood:Born into a working-class family,...
and Kit Lambert
Kit Lambert
Christopher "Kit" Sebastian Lambert was a record producer and the manager for The Who.-Early life:Kit Lambert was the son of noted composer, Constant Lambert...
, although he reportedly became the butt of the pair's inveterate and often cruel practical joking.
He kept his Robert Stigwood Agency intact and worked to rebuild his career as a manager and independent producer. One of the first acts he managed during this period was Junco Partners, a blues band which succeeded The Animals
The Animals
The Animals were an English music group of the 1960s formed in Newcastle upon Tyne during the early part of the decade, and later relocated to London...
as the house band
House band
For the British band that existed from 1984-2001, see The House BandA house band is a group of musicians, often centrally organized by a band leader, who regularly play an establishment. It is widely used to refer both to the bands who work on entertainment programs on television or radio, and to...
at Newcastle
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...
's Club A Go Go. The band recorded for Columbia Records
Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...
and Barclay Records
Barclay Records
Barclay Records is a French record label founded in the mid-1950s by Eddie Barclay under the alias, Edouard Ruault. Eddie Barclay also founded the Riviera label in the early-1950s....
, with one of its first releases being co-produced by Stigwood and Vicki Wickham. The band included Charlie Harcourt, later of Lindisfarne
Lindisfarne
Lindisfarne is a tidal island off the north-east coast of England. It is also known as Holy Island and constitutes a civil parish in Northumberland...
and Cat Mother and the All Night News Boys.
In 1966 Stigwood made an important connection when he paid £500 to Stamp and Lambert for the right to become The Who's booking agent. This gave him the opportunity, soon after, to lure the band away from Brunswick Records
Brunswick Records
Brunswick Records is a United States based record label. The label is currently distributed by E1 Entertainment.-From 1916:Records under the "Brunswick" label were first produced by the Brunswick-Balke-Collender Company...
and onto his own newly established Reaction Records
Reaction Records
Reaction Records was an independent British record label, run by music executive Robert Stigwood in 1966 and 1967. Although Reaction released only three albums, one EP and eighteen singles in its brief existence, its roster included two of the most popular British bands of the time, The Who and Cream...
label, for whom they recorded the famous single "Substitute".
The recording was done on the sly, and was explicitly intended by the group as a means of breaking their five-year contract with producer Shel Talmy
Shel Talmy
Shel Talmy is an American record producer, songwriter, arranger best known for his work in London with The Who and The Kinks in the 1960s, with a role in many other English bands including Cat Stevens and Pentangle...
, with whom they had fallen out (the single's original B-side, "Waltz For A Pig", was reputedly written about Talmy). Also in 1966 he became the manager of a new band comprising three of the best musicians from two groups that he had under contract—guitarist Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, and bassist Jack Bruce
Jack Bruce
John Symon Asher "Jack" Bruce is a Scottish musician and songwriter, respected as a founding member of the British psychedelic rock power trio, Cream, for a solo career that spans several decades, and for his participation in several well-known musical ensembles...
and drummer Ginger Baker
Ginger Baker
Peter Edward "Ginger" Baker is an English drummer, best known for his work with Cream and Blind Faith. He is also known for his numerous associations with World music, mainly the use of African influences...
from The Graham Bond Organisation
Graham Bond
Graham John Clifton Bond was an English musician, considered a founding father of the English rhythm and blues boom of the 1960s....
.
His connection to The Who enabled him to get his new group, Cream
Cream (band)
Cream were a 1960s British rock supergroup consisting of bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, guitarist/vocalist Eric Clapton, and drummer Ginger Baker...
, onto the bill for a 9-day stint at the RKO theater in New York in 1967. It was an important showcase for Cream and enabled Stigwood to introduce them to New York's music cognoscenti and helped break them in the USA. It was for this show that Stigwood commissioned the Dutch art collective called The Fool
The Fool (design collective)
The Fool were a Dutch design collective and band who were influential in the psychedelic style of art in British popular music in the late 1960s. The colourful art draws on many fantastical and mystical themes...
to paint the striking psychedelic designs on Eric Clapton's Gibson SG guitar, Jack Bruce's Fender VI bass and Ginger Baker's drum kit.
However, during this period Stigwood had another pop flop when he tried to promote a singer called "Oscar". Oscar's real name was Paul Beuselinck; his stage name was taken from his father, Oscar Beuselinck, a music business lawyer whose clients included The Who. Oscar had been the pianist in Screaming Lord Sutch
Screaming Lord Sutch
David Edward Sutch , also known as "Screaming Lord Sutch, 3rd Earl of Harrow", or simply "Screaming Lord Sutch", was a musician from the United Kingdom...
's backing band, The Savages. Under the name 'Paul Dean' he released two singles in 1965-66. As 'Oscar' he cut four singles for Stigwood's Reaction label. The first, "Club of Lights" managed to scrape into the lower reaches of the Radio London Fab 40
Fab 40
The "Fab 40" was a weekly playlist of popular records used by the British "pirate" radio station "Wonderful" Radio London which broadcast off the Essex coast from 1964-7.-Basis of the chart:...
chart. The second Oscar single was a version of a Pete Townshend song, "Join My Gang", which The Who never recorded. His third single, a novelty song called "Over The Wall We Go" (1967) is notable for being written and produced by a young David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
, and it gained a degree of notoriety because of Bowie's tongue-in-cheek lyrics concerning escaped prisoners and incompetent cops, which satirised a rash of highly-publicised prison break-outs in the UK.
Once again, however, Stigwood overhyped Oscar, sending out a fake Academy-Awards-style statuette. 'Oscar' vanished from sight for some time, but Beuselinck re-emerged in the late Sixties under the name Paul Nicholas
Paul Nicholas
Paul Nicholas is an English actor and singer who has had considerable success on stage, screen and in the pop charts.-Biography:Nicholas was born as Paul Oscar Beuselinck in Peterborough, England...
. He maintained a connection with Stigwood, performing in the London productions of Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar and Grease, and he also featured in many films. He appeared in Stardust, starring David Essex
David Essex
David Essex OBE is an English musician, singer-songwriter and actor. Since the 1970s, Essex has attained nineteen Top 40 singles in the UK , and sixteen Top 40 albums...
, and he played the sadistic Cousin Kevin in Stigwood's film version of The Who's Tommy (rock opera)
Tommy (rock opera)
Tommy is the fourth album by English rock band The Who, released by Track Records and Polydor Records in the United Kingdom and Decca Records/MCA in the United States. A double album telling a loose story about a "deaf, dumb and blind boy" who becomes the leader of a messianic movement, Tommy was...
.
Stigwood moved his recording activities to Polydor Records
Polydor Records
Polydor is a record label owned by Universal Music Group, headquartered in the United Kingdom.-Beginnings:Polydor was originally an independent branch of the Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft. Its name was first used as an export label in 1924, the British and German branches of the Gramophone...
, where former EMI staffer Roland Rennie had recently been appointed as the new managing director. Stigwood had apparently been forewarned that Rennie was moving to Polydor, and this, according to Napier-Bell, was the major reason that Stigwood had been unwilling to accept EMI's rescue package.
Rennie had been a key figure in breaking The Beatles in America; he had been sent to New York by George Martin
George Martin
Sir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...
and all EMI product was channeled through him for distribution by EMI's American partners. It was Rennie who struck the deal to license the first three Beatles records to the Swan and VeeJay labels, rather than to Capitol, who at first had no interest in the group.
Stigwood signed a much more advantageous deal with Polydor, with high percentages and substantial funding for his recording costs. This gave him the luxury of being able to take Cream to New York, where they cut their records with Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...
' famed house engineer Tom Dowd
Tom Dowd
Tom Dowd was an American recording engineer and producer for Atlantic Records. He was credited with innovating the multi-track recording method. Dowd worked on a virtual "who's who" of recordings that encompassed blues, jazz, pop, rock and soul records.- Early years :Born in Manhattan, Dowd grew...
and producer Felix Pappalardi
Felix Pappalardi
Felix A. Pappalardi Jr. was an American music producer, songwriter, vocalist, and bass guitarist.- Early life :Pappalardi was born in the Bronx, New York...
.
NEMS merger
On 13 January 1967 Stigwood signed a career-making deal with his friend and colleague Brian Epstein to merge their two companies. The Beatles were by now off the road, and Epstein was tiring of the demands of his ever-expanding business. He was keen to reduce his involvement in the company he had founded in 1963, NEMS Enterprises, so he eventually struck a deal with Stigwood.Why Epstein decided to merge with Stigwood is uncertain. There had been numerous other offers made for NEMS over the previous few years and Epstein is reported to have turned down more than one multi-million-dollar offer from American interests, so it is unlikely that he chose to become a partner with Stigwood simply for the money. They knew each other socially and through business, and Stigwood already had a reputation as a shrewd, tough operator, although it appears that Epstein was probably the only person in NEMS who was in favour of the merger.
According to author George Gunby, Epstein told The Beatles' publicist Alistair Taylor
Alistair Taylor
James Alistair Taylor was the English personal assistant of Brian Epstein who accompanied him to the Cavern Club when he first saw The Beatles play on 9 November 1961...
that Stigwood had originally offered to buy NEMS, but the deal eventually became a merger, in which Stigwood would have to put all his company assets into NEMS; in return he would received a reciprocal shareholding in NEMS, plus a salary, an executive position as co-managing director, and access to all of NEMS now-considerable financial and other resources.
It was a godsend for Stigwood, and it effectively placed him at the pinnacle of the British pop industry in one easy step, but Epstein seems to have been about the only person in NEMS who was keen on the idea. Alastair Taylor is reported to have exclaimed "You must be joking!" when Epstein told him of the merger. Epstein was also considering handing over his role as manager of The Beatles, but when the Fab Four learned of this they were outraged. They evidently disliked Stigwood intensely. Interviewed in 2000 by Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus
Greil Marcus is an American author, music journalist and cultural critic. He is notable for producing scholarly and literary essays that place rock music in a much broader framework of culture and politics than is customary in pop music journalism.-Life and career:Marcus was born in San Francisco...
, Paul McCartney recalled the group's angry reaction:
"We said, 'In fact, if you do, if you somehow manage to pull this off, we can promise you one thing. We will record God Save the Queen for every single record we make from now on and we'll sing it out of tune. That's a promise. So if this guy buys us, that's what he's buying.'"
Consequently, Epstein stayed on as manager of The Beatles but he handed responsibility for most of his other acts to Stigwood.
The NEMS' staff were also reportedly unhappy about the deal. The company had expanded rapidly growing from fifteen staff in 1964 to eighty in 1966. Epstein had taken over the Vic Lewis agency in 1965, (bringing in Donovan
Donovan
Donovan Donovan Donovan (born Donovan Philips Leitch (born 10 May 1946) is a Scottish singer-songwriter and guitarist. Emerging from the British folk scene, he developed an eclectic and distinctive style that blended folk, jazz, pop, psychedelia, and world music...
, Petula Clark
Petula Clark
Petula Clark, CBE is an English singer, actress, and composer whose career has spanned seven decades.Clark's professional career began as an entertainer on BBC Radio during World War II...
and Matt Monro
Matt Monro
Matt Monro was an English singer who became one of the most popular entertainers on the international music scene during the 1960s...
) and Lewis became a NEMS director, but many staff members found Lewis' abrasive manner difficult to handle. According to Gunby: "...(they) could see the same problems arising, multiplied tenfold, when Stigwood moved in. His autocratic style would be a time bomb ticking beneath people who had stuck by Epstein through thick and thin."
Gunby says that Epstein told Derek Taylor that the merger with Stigwood would bring new talent into the fold and would strengthen the operation. Taylor remained unconvinced—Stigwood, he said, had "a ruthless reputation, a cavalier style that upset more people than it pleased." Epstein himself soon found himself at odds with his new partner—he was reportedly unhappy about Stigwood's spending, was upset by Stigwood renting a yacht for The Bee Gees, and was also angered by Stigwood's unilateral decision to send Alastair Taylor to America on a business trip, a plan Epstein overruled. It is claimed that Epstein subsequently decided that he didn't want Stigwood in the company.
Diversification
Stigwood's next big break as a manager came weeks after he started with NEMS. Teenage vocal group The Bee Gees had recently arrived back in the UK after many years in Australia, with hopes of making it in the UK. Unknown to them, Ronald Rennie had already heard their only Australian hit, "Spicks and Specks", thanks to the band's publisher, so Rennie had made arrangements with their Australian label, Festival, to release it in the UK.When Barry Gibb appeared at Polydor's offices in London, Rennie immediately contacted Stigwood, who he thought would be ideal to sign the group to Polydor and manage them. Robert had just begun his eleven-month tenure with NEMS, and the boys' father Hugh Gibb had sent already an LP and acetates of their demo recordings to Stigwood in an effort to sign the group to NEMS. Stigwood signed the Bee Gees to a five-year deal in February and took their contract with him when he separated from NEMS in December.
Polydor released "Spicks and Specks", which had already been a major hit in Australia, but in spite of Stigwood paying for four week's exposure on pirate station Radio Caroline
Radio Caroline
Radio Caroline is an English radio station founded in 1964 by Ronan O'Rahilly to circumvent the record companies' control of popular music broadcasting in the United Kingdom and the BBC's radio broadcasting monopoly...
, the single flopped. Stigwood was undeterred, and with NEMS' resources behind him, he embarked on a concerted campaign (no doubt at NEMS' expense) to break The Bee Gees in the UK, assiduously wining and dining TV producers and DJs; according to the MusicWeb Encyclopedia, he spent £50,000 promoting the group in 1967.
It paid off—within months their second single, New York Mining Disaster 1941
New York Mining Disaster 1941
"New York Mining Disaster 1941" was the first song to be released by the Bee Gees in the United States , and their first song to hit the charts in the US or UK...
, had become a major UK hit and the follow-up, "Massachusetts", went top 5 in England and top 15 in the USA, the first in a string of Bee Gees hits through the late 1960s.
Stigwood's future with NEMS may have been uncertain, but it was decided in dramatic fashion by Brian Epstein's untimely death in August 1967. Brian's brother Clive took over as Managing Director and Stigwood left NEMS to form his own company, The Robert Stigwood Organisation (RSO), in December.
Robert Stigwood Organization
Stigwood's companies expanded into almost every field of entertainment. Over the years the Robert Stigwood Organisation has promoted artists such as Mick JaggerMick Jagger
Sir Michael Philip "Mick" Jagger is an English musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and a founding member of The Rolling Stones....
, Rod Stewart
Rod Stewart
Roderick David "Rod" Stewart, CBE is a British singer-songwriter and musician, born and raised in North London, England and currently residing in Epping. He is of Scottish and English ancestry....
, David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
, Rick Davis (ex-Bay City Rollers
Bay City Rollers
The Bay City Rollers were a Scottish pop band who were most popular in the 1970s. The British Hit Singles & Albums noted that they were "tartan teen sensations from Edinburgh", and were "the first of many acts heralded as the 'Biggest Group since The Beatles' and one of the most screamed-at...
fame), and which managed and forged the careers of acts including The Bee Gees, Cream
Cream (band)
Cream were a 1960s British rock supergroup consisting of bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce, guitarist/vocalist Eric Clapton, and drummer Ginger Baker...
, Blind Faith
Blind Faith
Blind Faith were an English blues-rock band that consisted of Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood and Ric Grech. The band, which was one of the first "super-groups", released their only album, Blind Faith, in August 1969...
, Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
and Andy Gibb
Andy Gibb
Andy Gibb was an English singer and teen idol, and the youngest brother of the family whose other male siblings formed the Bee Gees: Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb.-The early years:...
. On his RSO Records
RSO Records
RSO Records was a record label, formed by rock and roll and musical theatre impresario Robert Stigwood in 1973. The "RSO" stands for the Robert Stigwood Organisation. The company's main headquarters were at 67 Brook Street, in London's Mayfair...
label Stigwood recorded artists including Clapton, Yvonne Elliman
Yvonne Elliman
Yvonne Marianne Elliman is an American singer who performed for four years in the first cast of Jesus Christ Superstar...
, Paul Nicholas
Paul Nicholas
Paul Nicholas is an English actor and singer who has had considerable success on stage, screen and in the pop charts.-Biography:Nicholas was born as Paul Oscar Beuselinck in Peterborough, England...
, Player
Player (band)
Player is an American rock band that made their mark during the late 1970s. The group scored a few US Hot 100 hits, three of which went into the Top 40 -two of those single releases went Top 10, including the #1 hit "Baby Come Back". That song was written by group members Peter Beckett and J.C....
and soundtrack albums for the motion pictures The Empire Strikes Back and Fame in addition to the films produced by his company RSO Films.
By 1968 Stigwood was enjoying huge success with his music ventures—Cream and The Bee Gees were now two of the biggest bands in the world—but he was in no mood to rest on his laurels. He moved into theatre production in 1968, and chose his first projects very wisely indeed.
RSO's transition "from rock management concern to multimedia entertainment empire" began after Stigwood saw the Broadway production of the pioneering rock musical, Hair
Hair (musical)
Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni and music by Galt MacDermot. A product of the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, several of its songs became anthems of the anti-Vietnam War peace movement...
. He decided to stage it in London and it was a huge success, running for more than five years in the West End. He followed this with many highly successful productions: Oh! Calcutta!
Oh! Calcutta!
Oh! Calcutta! is an avant-garde theatrical revue, created by British drama critic Kenneth Tynan. The show, consisting of sketches on sex-related topics, debuted Off-Broadway in 1969 and then in London in 1970. It ran in London for over 3,900 performances, and in New York initially for 1,314...
, The Dirtiest Show in Town
The Dirtiest Show in Town
The Dirtiest Show in Town is a musical revue with a book and lyrics by Tom Eyen and music by Jeff Barry.An attack on both air pollution, the Vietnam War, urban blight and computerized conformity, it is filled with sex, nudity, and strong lesbian and gay male characters, and culminates in a massive...
, Pippin
Pippin (musical)
Pippin is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Roger O. Hirson. Bob Fosse, who directed the original Broadway production, also contributed to the libretto...
, Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd is a fictional character who first appeared as then antagonist of the Victorian penny dreadful The String of Pearls and he was later introduced as an antihero in the broadway musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and its film adaptation...
, Sing a Rude Song, John, Paul, Ringo and Bert (Evening Standard Drama Award Best Musical for 1974) and the last of the Tim Rice / Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals, Evita. Both Superstar and Evita were successfully reproduced on Broadway, the latter picking up the Tony Award for Best Musical in 1980. More recently Stigwood produced stage versions of his two big film musicals, Grease
Grease (film)
Grease is a 1978 American musical film directed by Randal Kleiser and based on Warren Casey's and Jim Jacobs's 1971 musical of the same name about two lovers in a 1950s high school. The film stars John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing, and Jeff Conaway...
and Saturday Night Fever
Saturday Night Fever
Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 drama film directed by John Badham and starring: John Travolta as Tony Manero, an immature young man whose weekends are spent visiting a local Brooklyn discothèque; Karen Lynn Gorney as his dance partner and eventual friend; and Donna Pescow as Tony's former dance...
.
In 1975, RSO teamed up with Bob Banner Associates to produce a stunt game show, Almost Anything Goes. The program, which aired on the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
Television Network in the United States, featured three teams of players from small towns in a competition where the emphasis was on good will. The show lasted four seasons.
1970s success
Stigwood moved into both film and TV production in the early Seventies. By this time the fortunes of his two top acts were waning: The Bee Gees broke up briefly in 1970 and for several more years they struggled to regain their former glory. Cream split in late 1968; and after the deaths of his close friends Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman and the disappointing reception of his 1970 masterpiece, Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs, Eric Clapton withdrew into drug addiction for several years.Stigwood also purchased a controlling interest in Associated London Scripts, an independent writers' agency co-founded in the 1950s by Spike Milligan
Spike Milligan
Terence Alan Patrick Seán "Spike" Milligan Hon. KBE was a comedian, writer, musician, poet, playwright, soldier and actor. His early life was spent in India, where he was born, but the majority of his working life was spent in the United Kingdom. He became an Irish citizen in 1962 after the...
and Eric Sykes
Eric Sykes
Eric Sykes, CBE is an English radio, television and film writer, actor and director whose performing career has spanned more than 50 years. He frequently wrote for and/or performed with many other leading comedy performers and writers of the period, including Tony Hancock, Spike Milligan, Peter...
, which subsequently developed the hit series All in the Family
All in the Family
All in the Family is an American sitcom that was originally broadcast on the CBS television network from January 12, 1971, to April 8, 1979. In September 1979, a new show, Archie Bunker's Place, picked up where All in the Family had ended...
and Sanford and Son
Sanford and Son
Sanford and Son is an American sitcom, based on the BBC's Steptoe and Son, that ran on the NBC television network from January 14, 1972, to March 25, 1977....
in the USA, which were adapted from the popular British TV shows Til Death Us Do Part
Til Death Us Do Part
Till Death Us Do Part is a British television sitcom that aired on BBC1 from 1965 to 1968, 1970, and from 1972 to 1975. First airing as a Comedy Playhouse pilot, the show aired in seven series until 1975. Six years later, ITV continued the sitcom, calling it Till Death......
and Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son
Steptoe and Son is a British sitcom written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson about two rag and bone men living in Oil Drum Lane, a fictional street in Shepherd's Bush, London. Four series were broadcast by the BBC from 1962 to 1965, followed by a second run from 1970 to 1974. Its theme tune, "Old...
. In 1973 Stigwood moved into film and produced Jesus Christ Superstar as a motion picture in association with its director, Norman Jewison
Norman Jewison
Norman Frederick Jewison, CC, O.Ont is a Canadian film director, producer, actor and founder of the Canadian Film Centre. Highlights of his directing career include In the Heat of the Night , The Thomas Crown Affair , Fiddler on the Roof , Jesus Christ Superstar , Moonstruck , The Hurricane and The...
. He followed this with the acclaimed film version of The Who's Tommy
Tommy (film)
Tommy is a 1975 British musical film based upon The Who's 1969 rock opera album musical Tommy. It was directed by Ken Russell and featured a star-studded cast, including the band members themselves...
, which became one of 1975's most popular films and remains one of the few successful mergers of rock music and film drama.
RSO Films' next production became one of the biggest hits in the history of the business – the colossally successful Saturday Night Fever
Saturday Night Fever
Saturday Night Fever is a 1977 drama film directed by John Badham and starring: John Travolta as Tony Manero, an immature young man whose weekends are spent visiting a local Brooklyn discothèque; Karen Lynn Gorney as his dance partner and eventual friend; and Donna Pescow as Tony's former dance...
. The 2-LP soundtrack album, written by and featuring The Bee Gees, made music history: it became the largest-selling soundtrack album ever released, and one of the biggest-selling albums in recording history, dramatically resurrecting The Bee Gees' career and making them international megastars. Remarkably, the songs were written 'to order' without the group having seen the film, and according to Frank Rose's 1977 Rolling Stone article about The Bee Gees, at least four of the songs — including "Stayin' Alive" – were written in just one week.
Stigwood followed this with another huge success, Grease
Grease (film)
Grease is a 1978 American musical film directed by Randal Kleiser and based on Warren Casey's and Jim Jacobs's 1971 musical of the same name about two lovers in a 1950s high school. The film stars John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing, and Jeff Conaway...
, which launched TV actor John Travolta
John Travolta
John Joseph Travolta is an American actor, dancer and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter and starring in the box office successes Saturday Night Fever and Grease...
to super-stardom and became one of the most successful film musicals ever released.
Not all Stigwood's later films were successful, however. Moment by Moment
Moment by Moment
Moment by Moment is a 1978 film starring John Travolta and Lily Tomlin. The film was written and directed by Jane Wagner.-Plot:It tells the story of a romance between a young drifter named Strip Harrison and an older wealthy woman, Trish Rawlings .-Cast:*Lily Tomlin - Trisha*John Travolta -...
, which co-starred John Travolta and Lily Tomlin
Lily Tomlin
Mary Jean "Lily" Tomlin is an American actress, comedienne, writer, and producer. Tomlin has been a major force in American comedy since the late 1960's when she began a career as a stand up comedian and became a featured performer on television's Laugh-in...
, came out only a year after Saturday Night Fever, but it was panned by critics, bombed at the box-office and is generally credited with singlehandedly turning Travolta into 'box office poison'. Five years later Travolta again displayed his now-legendary inability to pick roles when he agreed to appear in Stigwood's ill-advised 1983 sequel to Saturday Night Fever, Staying Alive
Staying Alive
Staying Alive is the 1983 film sequel to Saturday Night Fever, starring John Travolta as dancer Tony Manero, with Cynthia Rhodes, Finola Hughes, Joyce Hyser, Steve Inwood, Julie Bovasso, and dancers Viktor Manoel, Kate Ann Wright, Kevyn Morrow and Nanette Tarpey...
, directed by Sylvester Stallone
Sylvester Stallone
Michael Sylvester Gardenzio Stallone , commonly known as Sylvester Stallone, and nicknamed Sly Stallone, is an American actor, filmmaker, screenwriter, film director and occasional painter. Stallone is known for his machismo and Hollywood action roles. Two of the notable characters he has portrayed...
. Although perhaps not as bad as Moment by Moment, the movie was not a success and did nothing to restore Travolta's career.
Soon after Grease, Stigwood made another infamous miscalculation with the musical film extravaganza Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (film)
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is a 1978 American musical film. Its soundtrack, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, features new versions of songs originally written and performed by The Beatles. The film draws primarily from two of their albums, 1967's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club...
. On paper, the multi-million-dollar production looked like a surefire hit: it featured the songs of The Beatles, and starred two of the biggest rock acts of the day, Peter Frampton
Peter Frampton
Peter Kenneth Frampton is an English musician, singer, producer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist. He was previously associated with the bands Humble Pie and The Herd. Frampton's international breakthrough album was his live release, Frampton Comes Alive!. The album sold over 6 million copies...
and The Bee Gees, plus a long list of rock and film greats in cameo parts. Unfortunately, problems surfaced early and grew steadily worse. Stigwood sacked original director Chris Bearde
Chris Bearde
Chris Bearde is a comedy writer, producer and director best known for his work as a writer on the '60s zeitgeist hit Laugh In and for co-writing and producing TV specials for Elvis Presley, Bob Hope, Sonny and Cher, Bill Cosby, Steve Martin, Jim Carrey, Andy Williams, The Jackson Five, The...
before shooting began; the Bee Gees quickly realised that things did not augur well and begged to be removed from the project, to no avail. Although the new director, Michael Schultz
Michael Schultz
Michael Schultz is an American director and producer of film and television.-Life and career:Schultz was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the son of Katherine Frances , a factory worker, and Leo Schultz, an insurance salesman...
(Car Wash) did a valiant job, the film turned out to be a disastrous flop; lampooned by audiences and critics alike, the unfortunate production is still cited as one of the worst musical films ever made. The film is also cited by some as the beginning of the end of the disco era.
Stigwood's also produced the rock-musical teen girl 'buddy' movie Times Square
Times Square (film)
Times Square is a 1980 film starring Trini Alvarado, Robin Johnson, and Tim Curry. The plot of the film essentially embodies a punk rock ethic - misunderstood youth forming a band and, through music, articulating their frustrations toward adult authority, personified in the film as parents, the...
(1980). Stigwood's autocratic streak surfaced again during the making of this film. Stigwood wanted to remove dialogue scenes to include more music, so that the soundtrack could be expanded to a double album, but director Allan Moyle
Allan Moyle
Allan Moyle is a Canadian film director. He is best known for directing the films Pump Up the Volume and New Waterford Girl .-Biography:His first major film was Times Square...
refused to make the cuts, so Stigwood fired Moyle (who didn't make another film for ten years) and made the cuts himself. Star Robin Johnson
Robin Johnson
Robin Johnson , is an American actress. Johnson grew up in Park Slope, Brooklyn, New York City. She graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School in 1982.-Films:*1980: Times Square*1983: Baby It's You*1984: Splitz...
later said of the result: "It was disappointing. It could've been so much more powerful. I'd love to see what Allan's cut would've been." Although not successful at the time, Times Square now has a strong cult following among gay women. The music soundtrack is also of considerable interest; it included many notable new wave acts – Patti Smith
Patti Smith
Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses....
, The Pretenders
The Pretenders
The Pretenders are an English rock band formed in Hereford, England in March 1978. The original band consisted of initiator and main songwriter Chrissie Hynde , James Honeyman-Scott , Pete Farndon , and Martin Chambers...
, Talking Heads
Talking Heads
Talking Heads were an American New Wave and avant-garde band formed in 1975 in New York City and active until 1991. The band comprised David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison...
and Roxy Music
Roxy Music
Roxy Music was a British art rock band formed in 1971 by Bryan Ferry, who became the group's lead vocalist and chief songwriter, and bassist Graham Simpson. The other members are Phil Manzanera , Andy Mackay and Paul Thompson . Former members include Brian Eno , and Eddie Jobson...
– and it also became a collector's item for fans of English band XTC because their track "Take This Town", written especially for the film, appeared only on the soundtrack LP until the release of "Rag and Bone Buffet: Rare Cuts and Leftovers
Rag and Bone Buffet: Rare Cuts and Leftovers
Rag and Bone Buffet: Rare Cuts and Leftovers is a compilation album by XTC released in 1990. An odds and sods collection, it brings together B-sides, BBC sessions, soundtrack contributions, both sides of two singles released by XTC offshoots The Colonel and The Three Wise Men and other obscurities...
" in 1990.
Other films produced by Stigwood include The Fan (1980), Grease 2
Grease 2
Grease 2 is a 1982 American musical film and sequel to Grease, which is based upon the musical of the same name by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. Grease 2 was produced by Allan Carr and Robert Stigwood, and directed and choreographed by Patricia Birch, who also choreographed the first film...
, Peter Weir
Peter Weir
Peter Lindsay Weir, AM is an Australian film director. After playing a leading role in the Australian New Wave cinema with his films such as Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Last Wave and Gallipoli, Weir directed a diverse group of American and international films—many of them major box office...
's Gallipoli, produced under the R&R Films banner, and the 1997 Golden Globe Awards best film winner, Evita
Evita (film)
Evita is the 1996 film adaptation of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical of the same name based on the life of Eva Perón. It was directed by Alan Parker and written by Parker and Oliver Stone. It starred Madonna, Antonio Banderas, and Jonathan Pryce...
, starring Madonna
Madonna (entertainer)
Madonna is an American singer-songwriter, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983...
.
Robert Stigwood remains active, primarily in the theatrical musical industry. He recently sold his Barton Manor Estate on the Isle of Wight
Isle of Wight
The Isle of Wight is a county and the largest island of England, located in the English Channel, on average about 2–4 miles off the south coast of the county of Hampshire, separated from the mainland by a strait called the Solent...
, off the south coast of England.
Major productions
- Stage musicals
- Evita (winner of the 1980 Tony AwardTony AwardThe Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
for Best Musical in the USUnited StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
) - HairHair (musical)Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni and music by Galt MacDermot. A product of the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, several of its songs became anthems of the anti-Vietnam War peace movement...
- Oh! Calcutta!Oh! Calcutta!Oh! Calcutta! is an avant-garde theatrical revue, created by British drama critic Kenneth Tynan. The show, consisting of sketches on sex-related topics, debuted Off-Broadway in 1969 and then in London in 1970. It ran in London for over 3,900 performances, and in New York initially for 1,314...
- The Dirtiest Show in TownThe Dirtiest Show in TownThe Dirtiest Show in Town is a musical revue with a book and lyrics by Tom Eyen and music by Jeff Barry.An attack on both air pollution, the Vietnam War, urban blight and computerized conformity, it is filled with sex, nudity, and strong lesbian and gay male characters, and culminates in a massive...
- PippinPippin (musical)Pippin is a musical with music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and a book by Roger O. Hirson. Bob Fosse, who directed the original Broadway production, also contributed to the libretto...
- Jesus Christ SuperstarJesus Christ SuperstarJesus Christ Superstar is a rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with lyrics by Tim Rice. The musical started off as a rock opera concept recording before its first staging on Broadway in 1971...
- Sweeney ToddSweeney Todd (musical)Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street is a 1979 musical thriller with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and libretto by Hugh Wheeler. The musical is based on the 1973 play Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street by Christopher Bond....
- Sing a Rude Song
- John Paul George Ringo and Bert
- Evita (winner of the 1980 Tony Award
- Films
- GreaseGrease (film)Grease is a 1978 American musical film directed by Randal Kleiser and based on Warren Casey's and Jim Jacobs's 1971 musical of the same name about two lovers in a 1950s high school. The film stars John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing, and Jeff Conaway...
- Jesus Christ SuperstarJesus Christ Superstar (film)Jesus Christ Superstar is a 1973 American film adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice rock opera of the same name. Directed by Norman Jewison, the film centers on the conflict between Judas and Jesus during the last weeks before the crucifixion of Jesus...
(as co-producer) - TommyTommy (film)Tommy is a 1975 British musical film based upon The Who's 1969 rock opera album musical Tommy. It was directed by Ken Russell and featured a star-studded cast, including the band members themselves...
- Bugsy MaloneBugsy MaloneBugsy Malone is a 1976 musical film, very loosely based on events in New York City in the Prohibition era, specifically the exploits of gangsters like Al Capone and Bugs Moran, as dramatized in cinema...
(as executive producer) - Saturday Night FeverSaturday Night FeverSaturday Night Fever is a 1977 drama film directed by John Badham and starring: John Travolta as Tony Manero, an immature young man whose weekends are spent visiting a local Brooklyn discothèque; Karen Lynn Gorney as his dance partner and eventual friend; and Donna Pescow as Tony's former dance...
- Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club BandSgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (film)Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is a 1978 American musical film. Its soundtrack, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, features new versions of songs originally written and performed by The Beatles. The film draws primarily from two of their albums, 1967's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club...
- Staying AliveStaying AliveStaying Alive is the 1983 film sequel to Saturday Night Fever, starring John Travolta as dancer Tony Manero, with Cynthia Rhodes, Finola Hughes, Joyce Hyser, Steve Inwood, Julie Bovasso, and dancers Viktor Manoel, Kate Ann Wright, Kevyn Morrow and Nanette Tarpey...
- GallipoliGallipoli (1981 film)Gallipoli is a 1981 Australian film, directed by Peter Weir and starring Mel Gibson and Mark Lee, about several young men from rural Western Australia who enlist in the Australian Army during the First World War. They are sent to Turkey, where they take part in the Gallipoli Campaign. During the...
- Fame (as soundtrack producer)
- The Empire Strikes Back (as soundtrack producer)
- Grease
- Other
- Music for UNICEF ConcertMusic for UNICEF ConcertThe Music for UNICEF Concert: A Gift of Song was a benefit concert of popular music held in the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on January 9, 1979. It was intended to raise money for UNICEF world hunger programs and to mark the beginning of the International Year of the Child. The...
(as organizer and executive producer)
- Music for UNICEF Concert
External links
- Robert Stigwood Organisation official site
- Joseph Brennan: Gibb Songs website http://www.columbia.edu/~brennan/beegees/67.first.html
- The Knitting Circle: Popular Music http://myweb.lsbu.ac.uk/~stafflag/popularmusic.html
- Disraeli Gears Cream website http://twtd.bluemountains.net.au/cream/gears/disraeligears1.htm
- Saturday Night Fever - The Musical website: Robert Stigwood biography http://www.nightfever.co.uk/robert.htm
- http://www.beatlemoney.com
- The Don Arden Story http://www.elonetwork.com/mrbluesky/donarden.htm
- www.45rpm.org.uk - John Leyton http://www.45-rpm.org.uk/dirj/johnl.htm
- Moody Blues Tour and Set List project http://www.toadmail.com/~notten/70_65.htm
- Jenni Olson: "Times Square: Cult Classic Revival at Chicago Filmmakers" from OUTLINES (September 1995) http://www.greatgridlock.net/Trini/outlines.html