Pierre Cossette, the avuncular old-school talent agent, manager, music mogul and Broadway producer often called the father of the Grammy Awards telecast for persuading nervous TV executives to put “longhairs with high heels and makeup" on a live national broadcast in 1971, died Friday. He was 85.
Cossette, who had suffered in recent years with congestive heart failure, died at Barrie Memorial Hospital in Montreal, not far from his family's summer home in St. Anicet.
“He had a rough few years medically, but his spirit and sense of humor never left him," Ken Ehrlich, the longtime Grammy Awards producer, said Friday shortly after learning of Cossette's death. They continued to work together after Cossette formally retired in 2005 as the show's executive producer. [Note: An earlier version of this article contained only the first part of Ehrlich's quote.]
“Pierre was a creative visionary and one of the most accomplished, versatile and respected producers," Recording Academy President Neil Portnow said in a statement. “It was because of his passion and dedication that the Grammy Awards came to network television close to 40 years ago."
When Cossette approached officials at the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in 1970 about making a live broadcast out of what until then had been a private ceremony mostly for record executives held in local hotel banquet rooms, they were skeptical. They had packaged their own Grammy highlights shows in the '60s, “Best on Record," but they were low-rated affairs that ran months after awards had been handed out and all suspense was lost.
Cossette figured he could do with music what the film and TV academies had done since the '50s with the Oscar and Emmy telecasts, and paid $150,000 for the right to broadcast the award ceremony. He used money he had received from selling his interest in Dunhill Records, the label that he and Lou Adler formed in the early '60s that signed the Mamas & the Papas, Barry McGuire, Steppenwolf and Three Dog Night.
Still, it took considerable prodding before ABC bit. After two years, the show moved to CBS, where it has remained.
Cossette, who had suffered in recent years with congestive heart failure, died at Barrie Memorial Hospital in Montreal, not far from his family's summer home in St. Anicet.
“He had a rough few years medically, but his spirit and sense of humor never left him," Ken Ehrlich, the longtime Grammy Awards producer, said Friday shortly after learning of Cossette's death. They continued to work together after Cossette formally retired in 2005 as the show's executive producer. [Note: An earlier version of this article contained only the first part of Ehrlich's quote.]
“Pierre was a creative visionary and one of the most accomplished, versatile and respected producers," Recording Academy President Neil Portnow said in a statement. “It was because of his passion and dedication that the Grammy Awards came to network television close to 40 years ago."
When Cossette approached officials at the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in 1970 about making a live broadcast out of what until then had been a private ceremony mostly for record executives held in local hotel banquet rooms, they were skeptical. They had packaged their own Grammy highlights shows in the '60s, “Best on Record," but they were low-rated affairs that ran months after awards had been handed out and all suspense was lost.
Cossette figured he could do with music what the film and TV academies had done since the '50s with the Oscar and Emmy telecasts, and paid $150,000 for the right to broadcast the award ceremony. He used money he had received from selling his interest in Dunhill Records, the label that he and Lou Adler formed in the early '60s that signed the Mamas & the Papas, Barry McGuire, Steppenwolf and Three Dog Night.
Still, it took considerable prodding before ABC bit. After two years, the show moved to CBS, where it has remained.
