Sponsored by
Tributes to Granada boss who commissioned Coronation Street
Tributes have been paid to the television boss who commissioned Coronation Street and countless other small screen gems.
Sir Denis Forman, the former chairman of Granada, died aged 95.
During a glittering 50-year-career, the executive helped set up the TV studio and was the driving force behind classic shows such as The Jewel in the Crown and Brideshead Revisited.
The Dumfries-born impresario was one of the studio’s founding executives in 1956, becoming its joint managing director, and serving as its chairman between 1974 and 1987.
The TV boss was credited with fighting the corner for Tony Warren when his first scripts for Coronation Street were screened as a proposed 13-part drama. Newspapers at the time slammed the show as too grim for TV audiences.
Sir Denis later recounted: “If we’d been in London, I don’t think we would have made Coronation Street.”
Outside his TV duties, he was also a director of the British Film Institute and deputy chair of the Royal Opera House and the author of numerous books about music. Sir Dennis, a war veteran who lost his left leg in the battle of Monte Cassino, died at a London nursing home on Sunday.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Preston
Sunday 19 May 2013
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 10 C to 15 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: North west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 11 C to 16 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
Wind direction: North west
