Robert Stigwood

At 81 years old, Robert Stigwood physical status not available right now. We will update Robert Stigwood's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Robert Colin Stigwood (16 April 1934 – January 4, 2016) was an Australian-born music entrepreneur, film director, and impresario, best known for directing Cream and the Bee Gees, theatrical films such as Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar, as well as film projects including the highly acclaimed Grease and Saturday Night Fever.

Early life

Stigwood was born in 1934 in Port Pirie, South Australia, and the son of Gwendolyn (Burrows) and Gordon Stigwood, an electrical engineer. He was educated at Sacred Heart College in Adelaide.

In 1955, he hitchhiked to England. He worked in East Anglia at an institution for "backward teenage boys." He worked with Hector Ross at the New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth, Hampshire, for a short time before Ross left and the theatre closed.

Source

Career

He then met businessman Stephen Komlosy, with whom he founded Robert Stigwood Associates Ltd, a small theatre company, in London. He starred actor John Leyton, who became a teenage heart-throb in 1960 after appearing in a television drama based on Biggles. Leyton had aspirations to perform but was turned down by major record labels; so Stigwood introduced him to Joe Meek, who produced the singles "Tell Laura I Love Her" and "Girl on the Floor Above" (October 1960). Meek's personal assistant at the time, Tony Kent, confirmed that although Meek was present on the recording for the second, Stigwood assumed the role as the dominant co-producer. Neither album made much buzz, but Leyton's third album, "Johnny Remember Me," was released in the United Kingdom on July 28th and became a UK No.1 hit after Stigwood arranged for Leyton to perform it while playing the role of a fictional pop star named Johnny St. Cyr, who appeared on the new Associated Television drama Harpers West One. Stigwood and Meek licensed the song to EMI Records, who had previously declined to sign Leyton for themselves. The men were among the first independent record producers in the United Kingdom as a result of this step.

Mike Sarne, whose Komlosy-produced "Come Outside" charted Number One in 1962, and Mike Berry, another Meek protégé who had scored a hit with the Geoff Goddard-penned "Tribute To Buddy Holly," were among the many artists Stigwood's signed to a management/recording contract.

Junco Partners, a blues band that succeeded the Animals as the house band at Newcastle's Club A Go Go, was one of the first musical acts he performed during this period. With Stigwood and Vicki Wickham co-producing one of the band's first albums, they recorded for Columbia (the EMI label) and the French Barclay Records. Charlie Harcourt, later of Lindisfarne and Cat Mother, and the All Night News Boys were among the band members.

Several of the acts he promoted in the mid-60s lost Stigwood money, including tours of the United Kingdom by Chuck Berry and P. J. Proby, and he came close to bankruptcy during this period.

He began Managing Cream in 1966, based on two other bands that Stigwood had under contract – Eric Clapton from John Mayall's Bluesbreakers – and Ginger Baker from the Graham Bond Organisation. They were famous by 1967 after a U.S. tour with The Who – for whom Stigwood was the booking agent at the time. Stigwood shifted his recording career to Polydor Records, securing a much more lucrative deal than he had with EMI.

Robert Stigwood's agency merged with Epstein's firm NEMS in 1967, at the behest of Beatles manager Brian Epstein. He began guiding the Bee Gees, a teenage vocal group who had spent many years in Australia, and had just returned to their native country with hopes of a British career. "New York Mining Disaster 1941", the first international single, had risen to the top 20 in both markets and the United Kingdom, while "Massachusetts" reached number one in the United Kingdom and number 11 in the United States, starting a line of Bee Gees hits that lasted well into the late 1960s and beyond, which included a string of Bee Gees hits that lasted throughout the 1960s and beyond. Stigwood was seen as a potential successor to the NEMS team when Brian Epstein unexpectedly died in August 1967, but the Beatles refused to work with him. As a result, he left NEMS, with a "golden handshake," to create his own Robert Stigwood Organisation, bringing the Bee Gees with him.

Stigwood acquired a majority interest in Associated London Scripts, a writers' company co-founded by Spike Milligan and Eric Sykes in 1954, which included several of Britain's top comedy and television scriptwriters. Beryl Vertue of ALS was named deputy chairman by Beryl Vertue. Vertue was charged with delivering the formats to the American producers of All in the Family and Sanford and Son, which were based on the popular British television shows Till Death We Do Part and Steptoe and Son.

Calcutta!

In the early 1970s, Stigwood began to film and television production. Both of his major music concerts were in the doldrums by this time. The Bee Gees split up briefly in 1970, and after reuniting, they floundered for many years, until achieving a self-acknowledged "rock bottom." At this time, the former chart toppers had been limited to the northern England working men's club circuit.

Although Cream disbanded in late 1968, lead guitarist Eric Clapton stayed in a RSO contract. Clapton and Ginger Baker, assisted by Steve Winwood (ex-Traffic), and Ric Grech (ex-Family) fizzled out after just one LP. In addition, Derek & the Dominos, Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs (1970), although now considered a masterpiece, was met with a tragic and commercial reception, and it was overshadowed by Jimi Hendrix and Duane Allman's lives. Clapton was thrown into a downward spiral of depression and heroin use after these tragedies, as well as the agony of his unrequited love for Patti Boyd. Clapton eventually quit smoking, and Stigwood brought him right to Miami, where he appeared on his breakout album 461 Ocean Boulevard (1974), which included his US #1 hit version of Bob Marley's "I Shot The Sheriff."

Clapton suggested that the Bee Gees might benefit from a change of scene, and so they migrated with their band to the same house on Ocean Boulevard to record their album Main Course shortly afterwards. They were advised by Stigwood to change their sound from the ballads that had made them popular, and they began to move towards the disco sound that would bring them their greatest success, beginning with "Jive Talking," which was a US Billboard #1 hit in 1975. The records were issued on Stigwood's own label, RSO Records, which he founded in 1973.

With success, Stigwood's film career has expanded. His first feature film, directed by Norman Jewison, was a hit-screen adaptation of Jesus Christ Superstar (1973). He continued this with the film version of The Who's Tommy (1975), which became one of the most popular films at the box office in the year after its release. Almost Everything Goes, a 1975 RSO stunt game competition co-produced with Bob Banner Associates. In a game where the emphasis was on good will, the three teams from small towns were featured on the ABC network in the United States. The program ran for four seasons.

In 1976, Stigwood signed actor John Travolta to a three-picture contract. Many in the film industry were skeptical because Travolta was once known as a television actor at the time, but RSO Films' next film, Saturday Night Fever, made him a leading movie actor. The film had an unexpected source - a ostensibly factual magazine article that Stigwood had licensed. The Bee Gees' double-LP soundtrack became the country's biggest selling soundtrack album ever released. Stigwood followed this with a hugely successful film adaptation of the stage rock'n'roll musical Grease (1978), which co-starred Travolta and Australian singer Olivia Newton-John. Stigwood insisted that additional songs be included in the soundtrack, including Barry Gibb's theme tune and songs by fellow Australian songwriter-producer John Farrar.

Not all of Stigwood's films were successful. Critics attacked Moment by Moment, which co-starred Lily Tomlin, and Travolta was credited with transforming Travolta into 'box office poison.' Sgt. Sgt. was also in 1978. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, starring the Bee Gees and Peter Frampton, was another critical flop.

Eight of the 19 singles to make it to the top of the Billboard charts in 1978 were from RSO, but eight of them were from RSO. Five songs written by the Gibbs appeared on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart for 25 March 1978: "Night Fever," "Stayin' Alive," "If I Can't Have You," "Memory," "Emotion," and "Love Is Thicker Than Water" among others. The Bee Gees had a string of six consecutive number one singles from 1979 to 1979. Fame and The Empire Strikes Back, RSO had success with soundtracks for Fame and The Empire Strikes Back before Stigwood sold the brand to Polygram.

Stigwood founded Associated R&R Films with Rupert Murdoch in 1980, which resulted in Peter Weir's well-received Gallipoli (1981), but there are no further films.

Other notable films directed by Stigwood include Times Square (1981); Grease 2 (1982); Staying Alive (1983); and The Golden Globe Awards' Best Film Winner, Evita, starring Madonna.

Stigwood remained active in his later years, principally in musical theatre, as he appeared in Grease revivals and a dramatic adaptation of Saturday Night Fever (musical). He sold the Barton Manor estate on the Isle of Wight in 2005, which had been his home for many years.

Stigwood was homosexual.

Source