Hector Crawford

Hector William Crawford was born in Melbourne in 1913. His parents were William Henry Crawford, a commercial traveller, and Charlotte, née Turner, a contralto and organist.[3] He studied at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music and later conducted the orchestra there. In 1940 he became the musical and recording director of Broadcast Exchange of Australia, a radio broadcasting house, and its managing director in 1942.[4]

In 1945 he and his sister Dorothy Crawford founded Crawford Productions. Hector managed music, administration and sales, while Dorothy attended to script-editing and casting.[3]

Hector Crawford married Melbourne coloratura soprano Glenda Raymond on 10 November 1950.[5] They had two children.

Radio programs produced included Opera for the People, The Melba Story (which starred the then unknown soprano Glenda Raymond,[6] who shared the role with Patricia Kennedy),[3] The Amazing Oscar Hammerstein, and The Blue Danube. The singing competition Mobil Quest[7] first brought coloratura sopranos Joan Sutherland and June Bronhill and tenor Donald Smith to public notice.[8]

There were also radio dramas such as No Holiday for Halliday, Sincerely Rita Marsden, My Imprisoned Heart, A Woman in Love, Inspector West, and Lone Star Lannigan.[4]

Most (if not all) of Crawford's radio programs were produced for 3DB (Melbourne), at which station Hector's brother, Curteis Crawford, was an administrator and, later, manager. Through 3DB these programs were also distributed to stations throughout Australia, particularly members of the Major Broadcasting Network of which 3DB was the founder.

Crawfords became the first independent producer to screen a programme on Australian television. Wedding Day was a games/quiz show, in which newly married couples came into the studio straight from their wedding reception, in the hope of winning prizes. It premiered on HSV-7 on 10 November 1956 (his own 6th wedding anniversary) and ran for 39 weeks.[8]

Australia's first hour-long television drama series, Consider Your Verdict premiered in 1961, and the hugely successful police drama Homicide in 1964, which lasted till 1977. Then came Showcase (1965–69; a major talent quest that discovered a large number of big names; Hector Crawford also conducted the Showcase Orchestra), Hunter (1967–69), The Box (1974–77), The Sullivans (1976–82), the miniseries All the Rivers Run (1983), as well as Division 4, Matlock Police, Cop Shop, Skyways, The Flying Doctors and Carson's Law, among other programs.[4] At one point, all of the country's then three commercial television networks were showing Crawford studio dramas.[4]

In the 1970s he was involved in the Make It Australian campaign to encourage more locally produced television content.[9] The Whitlam government appointed Crawford a member of the Australian Film and Television School in 1973, and a member of the Australian Film Commission in 1974.[4]

As well as his endeavours in the drama field, Hector Crawford was also interested in music and particularly orchestra conducting. In 1938 he produced the first Music for the People concert.[10] These concerts were presented a number of times during each summer season on Sunday afternoons, firstly in the Fitzroy Gardens and from 1959 in the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. 3DB broadcast all Music for the People concerts from 1940. In latter years, the concerts were televised over HSV-7. The concerts were performed by an orchestra especially formed by Hector Crawford for the purpose, and known as the Australian Symphony Orchestra, and supplemented by a wide range of mainly well-known artistes. Originally, the concerts were composed of light classical music but, over the years, the format became lighter and lighter and even some pop music was later performed. A classic example of the latter occurred on 12 March 1967 when The Seekers performed at Music for the People; their performance being simulcast on 3DB and HSV 7. The Seekers concert was performed in front of the largest crowd ever for a concert event in Australia with an estimated 200,000 people attending.[11][12] The 2007 Guinness Book of World Records lists it as the greatest attendance at a concert in the Southern Hemisphere in history.[13][14] This attendance is also included in The Australian Book of Records.[15]

Hector Crawford sold his controlling interests in Crawford Productions in 1987 and retired in 1989.[4] He died in 1991, aged 77.[2]

The "Hector Crawford Memorial Lecture" is given at the annual SPAA Conference. It is the major annual public statement on the screen production and broadcasting industries in Australia.[9][20]