Jack Good obituary - 1931 - 2017: TV Producer
A
couple of years after Elvis Presley released his only rock 'n' roll
brand in the 1950s in the United States, television producer Jack Good
introduced the genre to the British public with the innovative and
exciting Six-Five Special .The BBC turned to Good to create a program for teenagers. "Something with mountain climbing for kids, fashion for girls, that sort of thing" seemed to be the theory.
But it was 1957 and after seeing the movie Rock Around The Clock the
year before, Good knew that the only way to get the kids tuned in was by
giving them rock 'n' roll, which was exactly what he did.
He had Lonnie Donegan, Marty Wilde, and Tommy Steele, have teenagers dancing in the studio and showing a United States movie of Little Richard playing Rip It Up.
It reduced a storm with the younger generation, with 12 million viewers adjusting on a regular basis. The show had its critics.After a year of battles with the BBC, Good left for ITV to do the most spontaneous, cutting-edge Oh Boy!
While the two shows went head-to-head, it was the dynamic Oh Boy! that emerged the final winner.
He helped launch the races for Cliff Richard, Marty Wilde and Billy Fury and was described by Andrew Loog Oldham, an early manager of the Rolling Stones, as "a weekly communion of pure sex and energy."
He was far from the life Good had imagined for himself.Born in London to a piano father and mother secretary, Good's dream had been to perform on stage and after directing Twelfth Night and Othello at school, he studied at the London Academy of Music and Drama.
After the national service in the RAF, he read English at Balliol in Oxford, where he was president of the Dramatic Society.
He appeared in the West End and worked as a double act with Trevor Peacock at the Windmill Theater but, after his marriage to German student Margrit Tischer, Good wanted a more secure career, determined to become a BBC apprentice producer.Your success with Six-Five Special and Oh Boy! led to other TV hits including Boy Meets Girls and in 1962 went to Hollywood where he released Shindig !, a new pop show for ABC and produced the television special, Around The Beatles. Party! also featured The Who, the Rolling Stones and Roy Orbison and featured new talent such as the Righteous Brothers.
Well he would later question his own morality about his rock'n'roll programs. At the time when he was playing with the idea of being a monk, he said: "I have often thought, 'What have I done? I have destroyed and corrupted the youth of this country.'
But he did not turn his back on rock 'n' roll and later wrote a pair of theater musicals called Catch My Soul, based on Shakespeare's Othello, and another on the life of Elvis Presley. He is survived by his children. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1987.
But it was 1957 and after seeing the movie Rock Around The Clock the
year before, Good knew that the only way to get the kids tuned in was by
giving them rock 'n' roll, which was exactly what he did.He had Lonnie Donegan, Marty Wilde, and Tommy Steele, have teenagers dancing in the studio and showing a United States movie of Little Richard playing Rip It Up.
It reduced a storm with the younger generation, with 12 million viewers adjusting on a regular basis. The show had its critics.After a year of battles with the BBC, Good left for ITV to do the most spontaneous, cutting-edge Oh Boy!While the two shows went head-to-head, it was the dynamic Oh Boy! that emerged the final winner.
He helped launch the races for Cliff Richard, Marty Wilde and Billy Fury and was described by Andrew Loog Oldham, an early manager of the Rolling Stones, as "a weekly communion of pure sex and energy."
He was far from the life Good had imagined for himself.Born in London to a piano father and mother secretary, Good's dream had been to perform on stage and after directing Twelfth Night and Othello at school, he studied at the London Academy of Music and Drama.
After the national service in the RAF, he read English at Balliol in Oxford, where he was president of the Dramatic Society.He appeared in the West End and worked as a double act with Trevor Peacock at the Windmill Theater but, after his marriage to German student Margrit Tischer, Good wanted a more secure career, determined to become a BBC apprentice producer.Your success with Six-Five Special and Oh Boy! led to other TV hits including Boy Meets Girls and in 1962 went to Hollywood where he released Shindig !, a new pop show for ABC and produced the television special, Around The Beatles. Party! also featured The Who, the Rolling Stones and Roy Orbison and featured new talent such as the Righteous Brothers.
Well he would later question his own morality about his rock'n'roll programs. At the time when he was playing with the idea of being a monk, he said: "I have often thought, 'What have I done? I have destroyed and corrupted the youth of this country.'
But he did not turn his back on rock 'n' roll and later wrote a pair of theater musicals called Catch My Soul, based on Shakespeare's Othello, and another on the life of Elvis Presley. He is survived by his children. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1987.
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