Jack Good

Jack Good (7 August 1931 – 24 September 2017) was a British television producer, musical theatre producer, record producer, musician and painter of icons. As a television producer, he was responsible for the early popular music shows Six-Five Special, Oh Boy!, Boy Meets Girls and Wham!!, the first UK teenage music programmes. Good managed some of the UK's first rock and roll stars, including Tommy Steele, Marty Wilde, Billy Fury, Jess Conrad and Cliff Richard. Early years Good was born in Greenford, London, England, and was brought up in Palmers Green. His father was a piano salesman in Bond Street. Jack Good attended Trinity County Grammar School and, after national service, studied philology at Balliol College, Oxford, where he became president of the university debating society and of the college drama society. Initially intending to become an actor, he studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and worked as half of a comedy double act with Trevor Peacock, before joining the BBC to work on the magazine-format show Six-Five Special. Having recently been impressed by the movie Rock Around the Clock, he wanted music and a lot of movement. To get his way, Good had sets built, but shortly before the show started, they were wheeled out of the way, and he filled the space with the milling audience and performers. Television then was live, so once the programme started, Good kept it all as impromptu as possible. The running order was sketched out on Friday morning, then the only complete run-through happened immediately before transmission. The show launched the hand jive and Good even wrote an instruction book, Hand Jive at Six-Five. None of the Six-Five Special productions shows was recorded (due to the then-existing procedure of destroying and erasing already filmed programmes to make room for new ones), but a low-budget film based on the show survives. Independent Television Although Good had given the BBC a show that was attracting 12 million viewers, he was being paid only £18 a week. He left for independent television and launched Oh Boy! in June 1958 for the ITV franchise holder ABC Weekend TV. After trial broadcasts in the Midlands, it went national, in direct competition with Six-Five Special on Saturday evenings.