Lord Lew Grade, Britain's most legendary show-business entrepreneur and the man who shaped commercial television, died yesterday at the age of 91, prompting a wave of tributes from the film and television industry.
Lord Grade entered the London Clinic two weeks ago for surgery and subsequently developed heart failure. He died at 12.45 am with close family members at his bedside.
As chairman for 20 years of Associated Television, he was the executive behind many of ATV's most enduring hits, including Robin Hood, Sunday Night at the London Palladium, Emergency Ward 10, The Saint, Crossroads and The Muppets.
Lord Grade's friends and colleagues yesterday paid tribute to his energy and enthusiasm. Mr Bob Baker, the producer of one of Lord Grade's biggest television successes The Saint, said: "He was the last of the great ones, an original. He lived show-business and no-one made a greater contribution to television in the sixties and seventies."
Film director Mr Michael Winner said: "He was totally unique. He plunged in and had a go. Lew was the epitome of the word `entrepreneur'."
Film producer Lord Puttnam spoke to Radio 4's The World This Weekend. He said: "He was an extraordinary man. I've never known, and I never will know, anyone quite like him. I loved him, and that is not an exaggeration. He was ebullient, incredibly generous with his time, and over the years, with his money. He was a great man."
Lord Grade was revered throughout the entertainment industry not only for his ability to spot a show, but also to make a deal. Knighted for his services to export in 1969, he also won the Queen's award for industry in 1967 for his television and film deals on both sides of the Atlantic. He was made a life peer in 1976 by the then Prime Minister, Mr Harold Wilson who gave him the appropriate title of Lord Grade of Elstree after the film studios.
He claimed he would retire in 2001, despite being forcibly retired from the board of his beloved ATV, at the age of 70, when most thought he would quit. Refusing to lie down, he continued to make films and recently signed a deal to develop film versions of his 1960s' TV shows.
But Lord Grade was not always successful. Ironically, given its recent success, it was an £18 million version of the story of the Titanic that proved his biggest failure. With characteristic wit, he turned the episode into a joke, famously saying of the film, Raising the Titanic: "It would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic".
Lord Grade will be buried on Wednesday. He leaves his wife, Kathie, a son, Paul and two grandchildren, Daniel and Georgina.