Bill FullerBILL FULLER, who has died aged 91, was a businessman best known for his chain of ballrooms in Ireland, England and the US. At one point he owned 23 ballrooms including San Francisco's famed Fillmore West. In Ireland he owned the Crystal Ballroom (later McGonagles), Town and Country Club, Old Shieling Hotel, all in Dublin, Atlantic Ballroom, Tramore, Co Waterford and Teach Furbo in Spiddal, Co Galway.
He also promoted jazz concerts, including several by Billie Holiday, at New York's Carnegie Hall, and helped introduce Patsy Cline to American East Coast audiences. His booking agency handled country heavyweights such as Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Willie Nelson, and he was sufficiently well-connected to the people who ran showbusiness in the city to get Irish showbands into Las Vegas.
As well as showbands he promoted Irish performers such as singer Dolly McMahon, accordionist Joe Burke and tenor Edmund Browne through the Ceol, Siamsa, Amhrán agencies. His other interests included Holiday Motor Inns and Eldorado Mining Inc.
A native of Kilflynn, Co Kerry, he established himself as a building contractor in London in the 1930s. He first ventured into the ballroom business when he opened the St Patrick's Club on Queen's Road in Bayswater.
Next he took over the Buffalo Rooms, a run-down Irish dancehall in Camden Town that had been closed by the police following one fight too many. "It was a small little place then and it was rough and ready because I was breaking it in to see if I could handle the fights, but I handled them with these two fists, these two fellas handled it all," he said of it. Fuller extended the premises and built a new ballroom that could hold 2,000 people.
He also established the Astoria Ballroom in Manchester. By the late 1950s he also owned venues in Dublin and New York.
The Buffalo was a well-run venue and visiting bands were made feel at home.
But things went badly wrong the night Jim Reeves was booked to appear in 1964. A full house awaited the singer, but Reeves, idolised by Irish country and western fans, refused to go on stage because the piano was not properly tuned as per his contract. The management arranged for the night's takings to be deposited in a manhole in a nearby street, removed such fittings and fixtures as they could and hoped for the best.
One of the most spectacular riots in the Buffalo's history ensued, and legend has it that mounted police entered the ballroom to clear the crowd.
Fuller, by now based in Las Vegas where he ran a mining company, flew in to hear the Pogues in 1987, and insisted on cooking the band a steak dinner before the show. Shane McGowan, a vegetarian, did not, however, wish to appear to be a wimp in Fuller's eyes. "So I said, 'Thank you very much', and ate the potatoes and cabbage."
Fuller was based in Dublin for much of the late 1960s and early 1970s. As well as his entertainment interests, he tried his hand as a developer. But his ambitious plans to develop a luxury marina in Galway Bay came to nothing; he blamed "bad friends" in the government.
In the 1970s he acted as bailsman for several IRA men who were brought before the courts, including Anthony "Dutch" Doherty. In Las Vegas in 2000 he did likewise for Sandy Murphy, an exotic dancer known as the "Irish Venus", who with her lover Rick Tabish was convicted of the murder of her boyfriend Ted Binion. Fuller also paid her legal fees estimated at $150,000, sat in court throughout the trial and voiced a desire to marry her if acquitted. Retried in 2004, Murphy and Tabish were acquitted of murder. She said of Fuller, "God sent him to me".
He died in Santa Monica, California. Married three times, he is survived by four daughters and two sons.
William J. (Bill) Fuller: born 1917; died July 28th, 2008