Jarvis Astaire obituary

Businessman who made his name as a boxing promoter and then went on to be a film producer and financier

Jarvis Astaire, who has died aged 97, is best remembered as the business brain behind the boxing alliance he formed with the mercurial matchmaker Mickey Duff, which dominated the sport in Britain for more than two decades before the emergence of Frank Warren in the 1980s. But he was also a film producer and financier, and bridled at any attempt to pigeonhole him as a boxing man. “Boxing has never accounted for more than 10% of my business activity,” he wrote in his 1999 autobiography, Encounters. “I have always resented it when people, and particularly the media, refer to me as the boxing promoter Jarvis Astaire.”

In the world of film, Astaire managed Dustin Hoffman for four of his peak years in Hollywood, during which he made films such as Lenny (1974), All the President’s Men (1976) and Marathon Man (1976). He was also the producer or backer of many other films and television programmes, and was credited with being the driving force behind the development of closed circuit television coverage of major sporting events.

Born in Stepney in the east end of London, Jarvis was the son of Jewish parents, his grandparents having fled persecution in Russia. His parents made their living first through owning milliners’ shops and later by developing their own hat manufacturing business. He attributed his love of theatre and films to the influence of his mother, Esther, who had a passion for music hall acts and the cinema, while his father, Max, encouraged him to play cricket and football, sports in which he would maintain a lifelong interest.

Astaire’s early ambitions to pursue a legal career were curtailed by the outbreak of the second world war. Instead, his first paid employment was for a company making surgical instruments and artificial limbs, a vital part of the war effort that meant he was not called up for active military service.

But it was quickly clear that he had an aptitude for staging shows and putting together boxing nights. He was 20 when he ran his first show featuring professional fighters and, at 22, he had been granted a manager and promoter’s licence by the British Boxing Board of Control. The drive and ability of the young Astaire was spotted by Harry Levine, who rivalled Jack Solomons throughout the 50s and early 60s as the principal promotional force in British boxing. Levine and Astaire staged major fights involving, among others, the hugely popular London fighter and former world middleweight champion Terry Downes.

It was when Downes was due to fight the American champion Willie Pastrano for the world light heavyweight title in 1964 that Astaire secured a television breakthrough that he would later describe as the pivotal moment in his career – one that made him a key player in the entertainment industry for the next 30 years.

He and Levine had been unable to find a London venue for the bout, and were forced to book the much smaller King’s Hall in Belle Vue, Manchester. Astaire had been trying since 1959 to secure closed-circuit television rights for his shows, only to be rejected. But now his pleas that Downes’ thousands of fans would be unable to travel to Manchester led to a relaxation in regulations by the General Post Office, which at the time granted broadcasting licences.

In a first for the UK, the fight was therefore broadcast simultaneously to a theatre audience in London. The idea was a huge commercial success and the Rank Organisation pledged their support for all future shows. Thus the closed-circuit concept, cornered in the UK by Astaire, became an established idea.

Two years later Henry Cooper fought Muhammad Ali (then known as Cassius Clay) in a London world title fight that proved to be another financial boon, with Astaire a key player in putting the deal together. His friendship with Ali was longstanding: Astaire acted as his agent for many personal and television appearances while handling UK closed circuit and television rights for his fights.

Through the next 20 years or more Astaire dominated British boxing with his matchmaker and co-promoter Duff, working in conjunction with the boxing manager and trainer Terry Lawless and a fellow promoter, Mike Barrett. So dominant were they, in fact, that the Sunday Times ran a report in 1982 claiming that together they constituted a “cartel” that was a bar to fair competition in the sport and harmed fighters’ earnings potential. Astaire and his business partners were, however, subsequently exonerated by a British Boxing Board of Control investigation and the Office of Fair Trading ruled there were no grounds for action against them.

A succession of high-profile fighters such as Joe Bugner, Jim Watt, Lloyd Honeyghan and, most famously, Frank Bruno, had their opponents chosen and their careers masterminded by Duff, while Astaire made sure that financial rewards were maximised. “I realised if I was going to be involved in boxing, I needed help,” he said, which is why he relied so heavily on the deep knowledge of Duff, with whom he would frequently engage in telephone rows of terrifying intensity before calmly resuming his day’s work.

In the 60s Astaire also owned a chain of menswear shops before moving into property dealing, especially in the development of shopping parades and supermarkets. He served on the boards of several major companies, including William Hill and Technicolor, and in 1984 became deputy chairman of Wembley Stadium. He claimed to have been offered and rejected the chance to manage the Beatles, but had, he said, turned down the opportunity because his wife, Phyllis Oppenheim, whom he married in 1948, disliked the band.

It was after Phyllis’s death in 1974 that Astaire sought fresh challenges through working in the film world, managing Hoffman, whom he characterised as “unique, enlightening and rewarding” but also “trying, tiring and exasperating”. Later he arranged finance for films and acted as producer of Hoffman and Vanessa Redgrave’s Agatha (1979), about the crime writer Agatha Christie’s disappearance in 1926.

Astaire enjoyed some success as a racehorse owner and breeder, became chairman of the Greyhound Racing Association (1993-2005), and was also a prominent player in both the British Olympic Association and the Commonwealth Games Federation. In 1981 he married Nadine Hyman. She reintroduced him to tennis, and he remained a regular player at the Queen’s Club in London until into his late 80s.

Despite Astaire’s conspicuous wealth and opulent lifestyle, he was a staunch supporter of the Labour party, once counting the prime minister Harold Wilson as a friend. He saw no conflict between his lifestyle and his political beliefs and would say, while stepping into a chauffeur-driven limo: “The workers deserve their rewards.” He had a long association with the Variety Club and various young people’s clubs, and for his charitable work was appointed OBE in 2004. Two years later he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.

Nadine died in 1986. He is survived by his children, Steven and Susan, from his first marriage, and five grandchildren.

Jarvis Joseph Astaire, boxing promoter, businessman and film producer, born 6 October 1923; died 21 August 2021

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