Television producer who created Neighbours
Born: August 4 1923;
Died: May 6, 2016
REG Grundy, who has died aged 92, was a media and television mogul who created the Australian soap opera Neighbours, which became a global hit in the 1980s and made stars of Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan.
Grundy was also responsible for many other shows that became familiar in the UK, including daytime soaps such as The Young Doctors and Sons and Daughters, and the cult hit Prisoner: Cell Block H. His shows were sometimes derided for their low production values and relentlessly perky theme tunes, but Prisoner, which began in 1979, was ground-breaking for its time, dealing with issues such as prison reform and homosexuality.
He started his career in radio, first as a sport commentator before working on game show formats for 2SM, a station in his home town of Sydney. He then moved into television, presenting Australia’s version of Wheel of Fortune and developing other formats such as Beat the Odds.
He founded his own company Grundy Productions in 1959 and began producing the dramas that would make him famous (so famous in fact that in Australia the phrase “Reg Grundies” was used as rhyming slang for undies). He was also a co-producer on Abba: The Movie, the documentary film that followed Abba on a tour of Australia.
One of this early successes on television was The Young Doctors, which began in 1976 and was concerned with the frequent romances between the staff at the fictional Albert Memorial hospital. Five years later, he had another success with Sons and Daughters which ran for six years from 1981, but it was Neighbours, which started in 1985, that became his biggest hit. It brought Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan together as the young couple Scott and Charlene Robinson and helped launch them as international pop stars. Other stars who had an early break in the show were the actor Russell Crowe and the singer Natalie Imbruglia.
He sold his company to the media conglomerate Pearson Plc for £175 million in April 1995, of which Grundy himself is believed to have received the vast bulk. It later became known as FremantleMedia Australia.
The current CEO of FremantleMedia Australia, Ian Hogg, called Grundy an icon and said his innate understanding of great storytelling and entertainment lived on today through programmes like Neighbours which is now in its 31st year.
Jason Donovan also called Grundy a pioneer of television. "I'm old enough to remember a time when the true pioneers of Australian television industry built it from nothing and gave opportunities to actors, directors and crew alike,” he said.
"Reg was one of these legendary founders and Neighbours was one of the many products of his life's work. I was lucky to be a small part of his world."
In his spare time, Grundy was an accomplished wildlife photographer and published a book of his pictures in 2005. He was married to the actress Joy Chambers, who survives him, and lived in Bermuda, where he died.
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