Lew Grade
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Lew Grade, Baron Grade (25 December 1906–13 December 1998), born Louis Winogradsky, was an influential showbusiness impresario and television company executive in the United Kingdom. His interests included Pye Records and ATV.
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[edit] Biography
[edit] Early years
He was born in Tokmak, Ukraine, to Olga and Isaac Winogradsky. In 1912 the Jewish family fled the Russian pogroms to a new life in the East End of London. Isaac managed a cinema, while his three sons attended the Rochelle Street School in Bethnal Green, near Shoreditch, where Yiddish was spoken by 90% of the pupils. For two years they lived in rented rooms at the north end of Brick Lane, then moved to the nearby Boundary Estate<ref>'Bethnal Green: Building and Social Conditions from 1876 to 1914', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 11: Stepney, Bethnal Green (1998), pp. 126-32 accessed: 14 November 2006.</ref>. At 15 Louis became an agent for a clothing firm, and shortly afterwards started his own business. But after he won a Charleston competition at the Royal Albert Hall in 1926, he became a professional dancer under the name Lew Grade. In 1933, he founded a talent agency.
[edit] Family
His two brothers, Leslie Grade and Bernard Delfont, were also show business impresarios and his nephew, Michael Grade, carried on the tradition.
A sister to Lew, Leslie and Bernie, Rita (1924–1992) was born in the UK, by which time the family was living in Streatham, south London. She married a Twickenham doctor, Joe Freeman (1912–1979), in 1949. They had two sons, Ian Freeman (1950–), a PR consultant and freelance journalist, and Andrew Freeman (1962–), a corporate accountant.
[edit] ITC Entertainment
In the 1950s, as Britain prepared for commercial television alongside the dominant BBC, Grade had been approached by manager Mike Nidorf into the formation of a company for a bid of the new ITV network. Gathering several connections, including impresario Val Parnell, the Independent Television Company was formed to bid for a spot. Although initially rejected due to its size and potential power, it eventually joined with the Associated Broadcasting Development Company to form Associated TeleVision, which gained ITV bids for both London and Midlands. However, Grade would get his first taste of creating programming for an international audience with The Adventures of Robin Hood, commissioned by an American producer, yet produced in Britain. Its eventual success would lead Grade to a drive to create and produce for the world, leading to later accusations of making TV "for Birmingham, Alabama, not Birmingham, England." and ATV's eventual downfall in 1981.
[edit] Television success
Lew Grade is best known by viewing audiences as the man responsible for a number of cult British TV series through his ITC Entertainment production company. These shows included The Saint, The Persuaders (both starring Roger Moore prior to his international fame as James Bond), and two of the most famous works of Patrick McGoohan: Danger Man (also known as Secret Agent in the US) and The Prisoner. In 1962 he purchased independent production house AP Films, co-founded by Gerry Anderson, which produced a string of popular children's marionette adventure series including Supercar, Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, Joe 90, three feature films, and the live-action sci-fi series UFO and Space: 1999. Although supportive of the produced shows, the consistent drive for success at home and abroad lead to various artistic differences for Grade with McGoohan and Anderson, leading to the departure of both.
[edit] The Muppets
In the mid-1970s, Grade approached American puppeteer Jim Henson, who was in need of assistance for a new television program. Henson wanted to create a new TV variety show starring his Muppet characters in the United States, but had been dismissed by the American networks for merely being part of children's shows like Sesame Street. CBS almost agreed to holding the show, but only if it aired during a syndicated block of its programming and if it was produced by someone else. After watching one of Henson's pilots and recalling a special made in one of his studios, Grade decided to let Henson create his show in England and distribute it through ATV and ITC. Grade's action was instrumental in bringing The Muppet Show to the screen in 1976 and led to its wide success on both sides of the Atlantic and around the world. Henson chose to immortalize the great producer through the character Lew Lord (played by Orson Welles) in The Muppet Movie. Some also speculate Muppet Dr. Bunsen Honeydew is also a caricature of Grade.
[edit] Jesus of Nazareth
His other successes as a producer included the award-winning Jesus of Nazareth (1977), starring Robert Powell - ironically, as Grade was Jewish. Grade had unique success in selling to the American market. The mini-series secured a record breaking $12m. He also promoted extravagant 'quality' productions on ATV to prove its equal to BBC TV, for instance giving over a whole evening schedule to a live broadcast of "Tosca" from La Scala starring Maria Callas.
[edit] The Beatles
Grade's professional life had also intertwined with the famed British rock group The Beatles during two of their most crucial periods. In 1963, after tough negotiation with Lew's brother Leslie Grade to do so, they performed on the ATV show Sunday Night at the London Palladium as a Royal Variety Performance for Queen Elizabeth II. This was a big moment for the rising band prior to their discovery by Ed Sullivan and the start of Beatlemania. But when Grade crossed paths with the group again in 1969, it was under much less friendly terms. Grade and ATV Music Publishing bought majority share in Northern Songs, the company that owned nearly all of the Beatles' works. After a fierce battle, Grade and ATV won control of the company while controlling any other song works by Paul McCartney and John Lennon through 1973. The control of Northern Songs would remain through 1985, when the company would eventually sell the songs to a more controversial owner: Michael Jackson.
[edit] Major films
In 1980, Grade backed an expensive 'all-star' film version of Clive Cussler's best seller Raise the Titanic. Released the same year as The Empire Strikes Back, the middle of the original Star Wars trilogy, audience taste had moved on and the film was a major flop - Grade remarked "It would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic". Along with a number of other flops the film marked the end of Grade's involvement with major motion picture production. Amazingly, several of the most critically acclaimed films produced by Grade would come out after the disaster of Raise the Titanic: the Academy Award-winning films On Golden Pond and Sophie's Choice, as well as cult classic The Dark Crystal, which was the final project Jim Henson created in association with Grade and ITC.
[edit] Honours
He was made a life peer as Baron Grade, of Elstree in the County of Hertfordshire in 1976, having been knighted in 1969. He picked Elstree as his "seat" not after the famous Elstree Studios, known at one time as "Britain's Hollywood", but because ATV's studios were also located there, although in actual fact both are located in Borehamwood.
[edit] References
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[edit] Quotes
- Commenting on his expensive flop, Raise the Titanic: "It would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic."
- "Marriage was the best business deal I ever made. After that, Jesus of Nazareth and The Muppets."
- From Sir Roger Moore - "Anyone who is 88 and can still jump up on the table and do The Charleston...that speaks volumes!"
- "All my shows are great. Some of them are bad, but they are all great."
- "Only twelve apostles? Didn't I tell you I want this thing to be big, big, big!" (To Franco Zefirelli, on the set of 'Jesus of Nazareth')
