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Business News Industry People Obituaries
Robert Stigwood 1934-2016
By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 8 January 2016
Former music, film and theatre mogul Robert Stigwood died on Monday, it was confirmed by his godson Spencer Gibb (son of The Bee Gees’ Robin Gibb). He was 81.
Born in Port Pirie, Australia in 1934, Stigwood relocated to the UK in his early 20s, where he launched his own theatrical agency. Struggling to find acting jobs for one of his clients, John Leyton, Stigwood would send him to music auditions instead. This proved fairly unsuccessful too, until producer Joe Meek opted to work with Leyton, saying that his lack of singing ability could be offset by his good looks. This, in fact, turned out to be true, and they had an unsuspected hit. Although Leyton quickly moved back into acting, it was the start of a long career in music for Stigwood.
Setting himself up as an independent music producer and later branching out into live music too, he grew his business quickly, but suffered a setback when promoting a UK tour by Chuck Berry in 1965. Tickets failed to sell and Stigwood was declared bankrupt. He quickly turned things around though, and in 1966 became booking agent for The Who, whose managers, Chris Stamp and Kit Lambert, he was subletting office space to. From here he also took on Cream, and moved the recordings side of his business over to Polydor.
In 1967, Beatles manager Brian Epstein agreed to merge his NEMS company with Stigwood’s business, keen to reduce his involvement in the firm. However, The Beatles refused to work with Stigwood, Paul McCartney once claiming that the band had threatened to record a series of out of tune versions of ‘God Save The Queen’ if forced to work with his firm. Epstein also eventually fell out with Stigwood, and the partnership collapsed.
But Stigwood had more luck with The Bee Gees, whom he signed for management and recordings, and by 1968 he had also begun successfully producing West End musicals, such as ‘Hair’ (he was also involved with ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ in the early 70s). Later he became a film producer too and, having helped The Bee Gees re-invent themselves as a disco act, he hired them to write the soundtrack for his new film ‘Saturday Night Fever’.
Although he had become a less prominent figure in the music and entertainment industries in more recent years, Stigwood still enjoyed successes, such as the stage musical version of ‘Saturday Night Fever’ and the film version of ‘Evita’, starring Madonna.
